Shortlisted for The Wall

Snug are delighted to be one of the five shortlisted designs for The Wall, an international RIBA competition to build a national Christian monument to answered prayer. Richard Gamble and his team at The Wall unveiled the five schemes in the Houses of Parliament this afternoon. It’s an exciting project and we’re proud to be a part of it.

Our entry seeks to create a place where believers can gather to pray. More than that, we have sought to create a living wall, alive with the prayers of those who will visit the structure and those whose prayers are tweeted, triggering a multitude of lights that transform the wall into a physical embodiment of the life in the Church.

Our concept is for a wall made of 1 million bricks, donated from across the regions. Together they form a powerful reminder of our unity, one in Christ, forming a single continuous surface without end. We achieve this through the use of a Möbius strip, creating a continuous loop of wall that allows visitors to process through a triumphant arch, the gate beautiful, before encircling the wall. Bricks are arranged to represent prayers of praise, confession, supplication, etc. At the centre is space for many thousands to gather, and we believe, become host to great gatherings of the faithful.

Although beautifully simple and pure in form, it's twisting arch will rise dramatically but in harmony with Britain’s rolling landscape. It is both gentle and dynamic, secure yet open and inviting. Its form focuses up, in and out. We hope it will not only represent one million answered prayers but also inspire future generations to pray.

The next step is for The Wall team to secure a prominent site. We will then be called to develop our ideas before the winning entry is announced in early 2018. We are thoroughly looking forward to working on the next stage of the competition later this year.

The team at The Wall need all the support they can get and we will now be doing what we can to encourage them in the task of raising both support and finance for the project. To find out more visit http://thewall.org.uk or visit their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/TheWallofAnsweredPrayer/