The site has been developed alongside and part of the entire scheme and not as a separate section to the building, though there are some additional influences and ideals which I have tried to incorporate within the site scheme which work alongside the building design, since they are all one entity.

Initially when looking at the site it struck me that the river is an underused feature in Bath. All around the city the river is not really accessed or used particularly. The only place where you can really get close to the river in large numbers is Parade Gardens, but due to the imposing barriers and obscure entrance, many people are not able or do not realise they can access the river here.
Therefore when looking at the site and general masterplanning I set out to help reengage the city with its river. The river is a naturally flowing object that moves through the landscape until it chances upon obstacles that it moves around which means its form and the environment it finds itself in are intrinsically linked, one informing the other and vice versa.

This movement reinterprets itself in the context of the city where the river forms an edge to the city therefore the city has responded to the obstacle of the river and formed itself around that edge creating and following the flowing form.
The next iteration of this cycle therefore is where the river meets the obstacle of the city and reforms, responding to this new context and recarving out a path. The city though has made this an impossiblity since its form is considered dominant over that of the river therefore impermeable barriers have been set up to prevent the river from changing its course and engaging with the city. To counter this I propose to enable the river to carve out from the city breaking down the hard edge to the city, creating a public realm that enables the river to regain its role in the creating and shaping of the city and allowing real interaction between the two. The river represents flow and movement, and the constant force of it can be shown to represent the work of God in nature, which pushes forward through the land affecting and changing the environment around. This position on the cusp of the man and nature makes the site an ideal place to position a church building, an interstitiary between man and God, notionally. The main aims with the site therefore are to enable to the city to reengage with the river and also conversely enable the river to engage with the city, letting the river carve out of the city and create form of its own, making the transition between the urbanity of the city and the naturality of the river.

Along with this is set up along with the need and desire to create public space within the site. Public spaces in bath are generally underused. There is often a sense that one is intruding on someone else’s space, this is especially true in the old Georgian parts of Bath, for instance in the Circus, where the oppressive overlooking nature of the space, makes it uncomfortable to stand in for any period of time. Public spaces in Bath are generally unsuccessful because there is not a place to stop and terminate a journey, since people are always constantly on the move. A place to stop becomes important. The river therefore can be used as a stop from the frantic nature of life so to produce this relationship with the river will hopefully help give people a place to stop and rest.

The desire to create this public space also needs to bring in and not subserviate the need for ceremony within the site. The route through to the building is very important and should not be diminished by the landscape or the environment. This will still have prominence and will work alongside the need to create a public space to stop and rest, which is an interesting dichotomy to solve, since ceremony implies movement, and the public space is as much about stopping as providing a place for the public to pass through so the balance bewteen these two has to be dealt subtly