Resurgence Church by Zehua Zhang is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2026 Bronze A' Design Award in Architecture, Building and Structure Design Competition Category.
BronzeArchitecture· 2026
Resurgence Church
by Zehua Zhang
Client: Zehua Zhang
Bronze A' Design Award Winner in Architecture Category
Verified Award Winner
Verify Award Status for #180908The Design
About Resurgence Church
Resurgence is a new church in Altadena responding to post wildfire reconstruction needs. The design references the surrounding mountains through vertical, sculpted forms. Concrete, glass, and landscaped courtyards define the interior spaces, bringing daylight and creating calm environments. The project combines worship areas with community facilities, providing spaces for both spiritual practice and social interaction. It reflects local context while accommodating diverse community activities.
The Recognition
About the Bronze A' Design Award
Resurgence Church is a Bronze A' Design Award winner, a highly prestigious recognition granted to outstanding designs distinguished by creativity, ingenuity, and astuteness. Bronze winners are amply skillful and strikingly creative artifacts that authenticate the vast experience, imagination, and resourcefulness of their designers. Resurgence Church is expected to be a highly regarded, admired, and cherished object that is notably professional and innovative. This Bronze A' Design Award-winning design incorporates best practices in art, science, design, and technology, and is excellent for its attention to detail. Resurgence Church splendidly satisfies needs, touches desires, charms feelings, and appeals to curiosity.
Interviews
Design Interview
What is the main principle, idea and inspiration behind your design?
The main principle behind the design is resilience through renewal, using architecture as a symbolic and functional response to collective recovery after the wildfire. Inspired by the mountainous landscape of the site, the church translates natural ridge like forms into a vertical architectural expression that embodies spiritual ascent and community strength. It reinterprets the idea of a church not only as a sacred space but also as a cultural and social anchor, where rebuilding becomes both a physical act and a symbolic gesture of hope, unity, and regeneration.
What has been your main focus in designing this work? Especially what did you want to achieve?
The main focus of the design is to create a space that supports both spiritual healing and community reconstruction after loss. The intention is to achieve an architecture that functions simultaneously as a place of worship, cultural gathering, and emotional refuge, where different layers of community life can coexist without conflict. By shaping the building through light, landscape, and material solidity, the design seeks to restore a sense of stability and dignity while encouraging openness, connection, and collective recovery.
What are your future plans for this award winning design?
The future plan for this design is to further refine it into a buildable and context-sensitive proposal that can realistically serve the community after the wildfire recovery process. It may be developed into a detailed architectural project with structural, environmental, and material studies, exploring how the symbolic concept of a mountain-like church can be translated into practical construction. Ultimately, the goal is to position RESURGENCE as a catalyst for real-world dialogue on post-disaster architecture, with the potential to be realized as a meaningful community landmark that supports long-term healing, cultural revival, and social cohesion.
Behind the Design
Press Kit
Credits, team members and technical details provided by the designer.
- Unique Properties
- Resurgence is a contemporary church in Altadena, conceived as a spiritual and cultural catalyst after the wildfire. Inspired by surrounding mountain ridges, its sculpted concrete form rises vertically toward light-filled skylights, expressing renewal. A skylight atrium and courtyard weave nature, light, and community together, uniting sacred worship and civic life in a resilient beacon of collective healing and hope.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- Single story building with overall dimensions of 45 meters in width, 45 meters in depth, and 18 meters in height.
- Tags
- Community renewal, cultural architecture, fluid form, concrete and light interplay, atrium with skylight, courtyard garden
- Production Technology
- Materiality and light shape the design. Concrete as the primary material, conveys weight and dignity while its smooth surfaces create a clean, harmonious space. A skylight courtyard and meditation garden establish a quiet dialogue between architecture and nature. Glass curtain walls guide daylight into the interior, forming a sacred, serene atmosphere. As light moves through the vertical spaces, it brings a continuous sense of ceremony and spiritual tension.
- Design Challenge
- The project faced the challenge of balancing spiritual, social, and cultural needs after wildfire loss. Internally, it required understanding Altadena’s history, community trauma, and collective memory. Externally, constraints included building codes, material limits, daylighting technology, and construction feasibility. Overcoming these involved iterative modeling, community feedback, and innovative use of concrete and glass to create a resilient, meaningful, and functional design.
- Research
- Type of Research: Applied architectural and social research. Objectives: Explore architecture’s role in post-wildfire community renewal. Methodology: Community engagement, iterative modeling. Tools: Site analysis, surveys, models, 3D simulations. Participants: Residents, church leaders, community groups. Results and Insights: Mountain-inspired forms, light, and open spaces foster spiritual and social connection. Impact: Strengthens cohesion, cultural life, and human-centered design practices.
- Inspiration
- The design was inspired by Altadena’s post-wildfire recovery and the site’s mountainous landscape. I studied topography, light behavior, and community rebuilding models to shape a form that abstracts surrounding ridges into a vertical, light-filled sanctuary. Research into trauma-informed spaces and passive daylighting informed the atrium, courtyard, and concrete massing, creating a resilient structure that fosters healing, unity, and spiritual renewal.
- Project Duration
- The project started in August 2025 and was completed in December 2025
- Operation Flow
- This project operates through spatial flow and light manipulation. Its atrium and skylights transform daylight into dynamic patterns, guiding movement and fostering contemplation. Interaction occurs as visitors move between worship, community, and meditation spaces, experiencing shifts in scale, light, and material. Key frames include entrance, atrium, courtyard, and sanctuary. By harmonizing architecture, light, and landscape, it enhances spiritual and social engagement.
- Team Members
- Zehua Zhang
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