Cob Tabernacle

Designs for self-build, natural churches for new developments in Oxford diocese.

How is the Diocese to serve the new housing developments in its area, some of which are as big as small towns?  It is perhaps fair to say that we do not lack church buildings in this country, but that following population shifts, many of these can no longer serve the numbers they used to.

Manifest worked closely with the Diocese of Oxford to generate concepts for new self-build churches for new developments, based on the concepts of earth building and cob.  Large quantities of subsoil, often very suitable for cob-building, are produced by the construction of these very housing sites – could we involve local people in the design and building of their own church buildings?