Light, balance & faith: Joseph Smith Visitor Center

In the world of architecture there often is a stark divide between the professionals creating spiritual architecture and the ideology of those participants that will ultimately use the created space. Architects inherently have a responsibility to create meaningful architecture that can stand the test of time, this in part is due to the amounts of capital needed to create such places of space. The challenge of creating a building that meets the client's needs is the foundation for all other architectural philosophical pursuits. As professionals engage in ways to relate to clients and their ever more specifying needs, architects will continually need to learn and adapt. The inherent challenge is thus the need to continue reevaluating the processes used to arrive at meaningful architecture that is also pragmatic. Spiritual architecture is no exception but rather embodies the rule.;This thesis examined the relationship between the design professional or author and the client or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The needs of the clients are to create a visitor center within a site that is contextually rich, promotes spiritual growth and that connects the rich historical site context. The author attempts to provide a process framework which can be examined, emulated and improved upon in subsequent theses. The process looks at creating vernacular lists that can be applied to client-meaningful subsets which are, contemporary spiritual architecture, the existing Palmyra-Mormon sites and the life of Joseph Smith Jr. The findings culminate in the integration of the design process through the generation of form via alignment as well as the creation of expression through light, balance and faith. Light, balance and faith serve the spiritual needs of the building while alignment addresses the programmatic building requirements. Through the exploration of these elements the building demonstrates a comprehensive design resolution. The final product of the thesis process is the theoretical creation of the Joseph Smith Visitor Center in Palmyra, New York for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Conclusively the process generates favorable architecture that meets the ideological, philosophical, theological, spiritual and physical needs of the client.