Punchbowl Mosque

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"The project seeks to establish a new home for the Australian Islamic Mission and provide a complex of buildings to facilitate learning and religious worship for local community members that follow the Muslim faith. The development is to be constructed in two stages, with Stage 1 being the construction of the Mosque accommodating approximately 300 worshippers and Stage 2 being the construction of community buildings.

references ornamental vaulting of ‘muqarnas’ in traditional Islamic architecture, with each of the 102 off-form concrete ‘muqarnas’ containing a 30mm diameter hole at its center. Shafts of daylight are drawn into the main prayer space through the ‘muqarnas’, illuminating the space as the sun moves around from dawn prayer through mid-day and mid-afternoon prayer, prior to sunset and evening prayers.

A splayed off-form concrete wall springs from the Mosque entry doors, breaking the orthogonal geometry of the main prayer space floor plan and orientating worshippers towards Mecca. The design creates a center for religious teaching and community activities to meet an existing and rapidly expanding community-based congregation, now and into the future

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