The community house was built as a complementary community function to the Church of Saint Anthony of Padua on the plot opposite, serving the cultural life of the area as well as providing space for religious programmes. In designing the new community house, our aim was to create a welcoming space that, through an architecture that is at once open and transparent yet radiates a sense of shelter, can serve as a worthy place for the community. In the architectural and functional design of the building, it is important that it enters into an intense relationship with its wider and immediate surroundings, expressing its welcoming, communal character. With its clear composition and its response to its surroundings, in dialogue with them, the distinctive building is able to gain its own identity while forming a unity with the church complex. It is not directly connected to the church building; the foundations of Franciscan spirituality and the community create the connection between them. The massive architectural form, radiating strength and security, is made open by perforated surfaces. We ensure that the community spaces of the building can open up to their immediate surroundings as intensely as possible. This opening can be created on the street level and on the garden level. The garden-level foyer entrance has an intense relationship with the street level, from which a wide flight of steps leads down, as if continuing from the space in front of the church. The arcade of seven arches, symbolising completeness, connects with the church in spirit, and its slender, tall columns point towards the sky. The arcade interweaves the street level and the garden level, forming a two-storey reception space. The wide opening at the entrance symbolises welcome, like open arms inviting the visitor to enter. The covered open space in front of the entrance forms a transition between outside and inside. The large hall on the garden level opens on the one hand towards the more intimate back garden, and on the other, the transitional space created by the arcade, opening along the long side, enhances the experience of space. Besides extending space, experiencing inside and outside intensely and strengthening architectural unity, a fundamental aim of our architectural concept is its community-strengthening role. The chapel is placed at the centre of the community house, as the heart of the building. The homely, cave-like design of the chapel refers to the prayerful life of Saint Francis of Assisi, and its architectural concept is based on Saint Francis's work, the Canticle of the Sun.