The Saint Sarkis Church wins US Building of the Year 2022

08/03/2023 - Carollton, Texas. The monumental Saint Sarkis Church is named the US Building of the Year 2022. The award was based on an online survey of World Architects about the most significant architecture completed in the United States in 2022. The results brought out the memorial building of the Armenian Genocide of 1915 among forty other projects with a majority of 64%.

Designed by architect David Hotson, in collaboration with Fiandre Architectural Surface, the new building of worship is inspired by the ancient church of Santa Ripsima which is still located near the present Armenian capital, Yerevan, and it represents a symbol of the perseverance of Armenian Christianity. "I would like to share this award with all those involved in the design and construction of this building, including all members of the community of the faithful and the international Armenian diaspora for whom this building has a particular importance -  said the architect David Hotson - The most valuable collaboration, however, was with the Fiandre team, whose contribution in terms of extraordinary innovation and impeccability of execution was essential for aesthetic success, emotional and empirical of this particular project"

The Saint Sarkis Church project combines Armenian architectural and artistic traditions with contemporary digital design and fabrication technologies.

One of the elements that guaranteed its victory is the western facade, in which the 1.5 million victims of the Armenian massacre are commemorated. Made by Fiandre, the ventilated façade is covered with large-format ceramic slabs on which high-resolution digital printing was applied. The result is a layered visual experience on various scales of detail, made possible thanks to the DYS system (Design Your Slabs), a technological service designed by the brand for prints on large ceramic formats.

On an overall view, the architecture of the façade reproduces a traditional Armenian cross with its characteristic branched arms - "the tree of life" -. To a closer eye, the cross reveals interwoven botanical and geometric patterns, drawn from the Armenian artistic tradition. Going into even more detail, the overall patterns dissolve into a grid of tiny pixels, inspired by the Armenian circular decorations representing infinity.

There are exactly 1.5 million pixels that cover the entire facade of the Saint Sarkis Church and they were generated by a computer scheme that made them all different, so that each one commemorated one of the 1.5 million unique individuals who lost their lives in the genocide. The ceramic cladding of the façade was installed by Graniti Vicentia Façades using the patented Granitech ventilated façade system (a section of Iris Ceramica Group).

In addition to the commemorative façade, Fiandre has provided ceramic finishes for interior and exterior walls and floors throughout the Saint Sarkis Church, taking advantage of the wide selection of thicknesses and textures available in the Fjord collection of Fiandre.

Fiandre Architectural Surface on Archiproducts