The Holy Redeemer Church and Community Centre of Las Chumberas, designed by Fernando Menis, won the World Architecture Festival’s 2025 World Building of the Year award. The festival lists it as the 2025 Completed Buildings winner. The project combines a church, community centre and public square in Las Chumberas, on the outskirts of La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain.
Which concrete church won the award?
The winner is the Holy Redeemer Church and Community Centre of Las Chumberas. The World Architecture Festival’s official 2025 winners list names the project as World Building of the Year and identifies it as the Completed Buildings winner. The festival’s entry resources page also lists it among the completed-building winners.
The 2025 festival took place in Miami; New Atlas describes the award presentation as part of an event in Miami Beach. The prize name matters: “World Building of the Year” is the verifiable award, rather than a general claim that the building is objectively the world’s best.
How the project serves its community
This is not only a church. The complex comprises four independent volumes, including a church and community centre, alongside a public square. It forms part of an urban renewal effort in Las Chumberas, a neglected area on the outskirts of La Laguna. The project and its community role are described in Adam Williams’s November 17, 2025, New Atlas report.
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The building’s programme brings symbolic and everyday uses together. WAF Programme Director Paul Finch, as quoted by New Atlas, said the judges admired the architecture’s intensity and use of light, as well as the way it accommodates “symbolic and everyday needs of the community.”
Why concrete and daylight define the design
New Atlas describes the walls as rough-finish concrete inspired by Tenerife’s volcanic landscape. Narrow openings with sculptural metal and glass filter daylight into the interiors, making light and surface texture central to the building’s character. These are descriptions of the design, not evidence of a particular structural system or measured energy performance.
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In its reported remarks, Finch said the judges particularly admired “the way light has been used to shape the quality and character of the interiors, enhancing the tactile nature of the surfaces.” He also called the project “a fine addition to the architecture of Tenerife.” New Atlas prints his role as “Program Director” and reports the comments; the quotation is not presented here as a separately reviewed interview transcript.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How the church was built in phases
Construction proceeded as funding became available through small community donations, according to New Atlas. The first two volumes, which house the community centre, took two years to complete. The remaining structures were completed in 2021, 16 years later, as reported by the same source. These are reported chronology figures, not independently verified construction records.
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The available account does not give a total project budget, a donor count or a precise donation schedule. It does show how a phased building programme allowed the community centre to be completed before the rest of the complex.
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