TEMPLE YOUNG ISRAEL

Great Neck, NY

 

A place of worship is built-up of a community, it can be a social setting where the congregation can gather and people can come together in one scared environment. It is very important for the community to have a building that is worthy for this worship. This can be achieved when the visual and function aspects of architectural and interior design is balanced.

 

The scope of this job was a large renovation of the existing temple. The program includes a congregation space, a library, offices, meeting rooms, and a multi-purpose room which is also used as a basketball court for the community and youth program. Some construction challenges were connecting the new addition to the existing building on three separate levels and keeping the temple open during construction. This project was very unique in a lot of ways, one being the site. This building is located on an angled corner lot at an extremely busy intersection in the middle of town. The site in combination with the surrounding buildings, the community, and the program makes the success of this architectural design even more significant. We worked with the angled site creating an inviting entrance and atrium. The exterior façade has a modern form accompanied with the ‘Finwall’ glazing system and aluminum composites. Traditional materials such as brick veneer and cast stone facing makeup the majority of the building, which brings warm to the temple and ties it into the existing setting.