Carrollton, Texas, USA
A shaded entry portico, opening into an oculus that frames a view of the church dome, serves as the gateway to the campus of the Saint Sarkis Church and Community Center.
A reflecting pool, set into the gently sloping floor beneath the oculus, provides evaporative cooling during the hot Texas summers for visitors entering the green compound that surrounds the church.
Saint Sarkis Church and Community Center by David Hotson Architects won an 2025 International Architecture Award from The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design.
The monochrome gray of the architecture, achieved by matching the precast concrete exterior walls and glass fiber reinforced concrete light coves with a durable standing seam zinc roof, references the monolithic sculptural character of ancient Armenian churches, which were constructed entirely of stone.
The monochrome architecture is set off against the rich vegetation of a landscaped courtyard lined with Magnolia trees that overlooks the vast Texas horizon to the west.
Rising at the head of this courtyard, the west façade of the Saint Sarkis Church serves as a memorial to the 1.5 million individuals who perished in the 1915 Armenian Genocide.
From a distance, the façade is inscribed with the branching arms of a traditional Armenian cross.
Upon approach, the cross is seen to be composed of intricate interwoven geometrical and botanical motifs derived from the Armenian artistic tradition.
Upon still closer approach, the intricate façade design dissolves into an grid of 1.5 million circular pixels.
The individual pixels, derived from the endlessly varied circular emblems –symbolizing the infinite variety of creation– that recur throughout the Armenian artistic tradition, were generated by a computer script to make every pixel unique.
Each of the 1.5 million unique pixels memorializes one of the 1.5 million individuals who perished in the 1915 Armenian genocide, including members of the families that belong to the Saint Sarkis congregation.
The interior and exterior of the Church are modeled on the ancient Church of Saint Hripsime, built in 618AD, which still stands today in the Republic of Armenia 8,000 miles to the east.
The connection of the new church building to this ancient prototype provides a link to Armenia’s legacy as the world’s first Christian nation, which adopted Christianity in 301AD.
Concave light coves sculpted into the exterior reflect the powerful Texas sunlight indirectly into the interior space, resulting in an ethereal quality of illumination.
The doubly curved plaster vaults that shape the interior space are smooth and scaleless, with no visible lighting fixtures, air-conditioning registers or other contemporary technical details to interrupt the luminous spatial figure, which carries the memory of the 1,400 sanctuary of Saint Hripsime.
The sanctuary is entirely illuminated by natural light reflected into the interior without admitting solar heat or glare that would result from directly admitting the powerful Texas sunlight, resulting in reduced energy use for both lighting and air-conditioning.
The church is heated and cooled with a displacement climate control system, which uses a remotely located mechanical plant to introduce conditioned air at low velocity through floor registers located under the pews.
The result is a silent interior, without any mechanical vibration or the ambient sound of a conventional high velocity air conditioning system, providing a silent backdrop for the reverberant acoustics of traditional Armenian choral music.
Project: Saint Sarkis Church and Community Center
Architects: David Hotson Architect
Design Team: David Hotson, Stepan Terzyan, Michael Konow
Associate Architects: Terzyan Design LLC.
General Contractor: HighCoCo
Landscape Architects: Zepur Ohanian
Client: Elie Akilian
Photographers: Dror Baldinger
