A Church Built with BIM
The Sretensky Monastery is over 600 years old. People travel there from across Russia, and thousands attend services. The old church, especially during Orthodox holidays, was…
A church dedicated to the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church was built at Sretensky Monastery in central Moscow. It was designed using building information modeling (BIM). A construction portal correspondent explored why the church needs smart controls, underfloor heating, Wi-Fi access points, hidden speakers, and 3D mapping of icons.
Sretensky Monastery is more than 600 years old. People come from all over Russia, and thousands gather for religious services. The old church was overcrowded, especially on Orthodox holidays, forcing people to attend services outdoors in snow and rain.
A new, larger church was therefore planned nearby at 17 Bolshaya Lubyanka Street. It commemorates people who died for their Christian faith during persecution of the Church. The church is a monument to the victory of Jesus Christ and his holy disciples, the Confessors and New Martyrs.
The decision to build it was made in 2011, followed by an open design competition in December 2012. Construction lasted three years and three months. The cathedral is now open and can accommodate more than 2,000 worshippers.
A year earlier, on May 25, 2017, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus' consecrated the church. Russian President Vladimir Putin attended the ceremony and donated a 19th-century icon of John the Baptist, which was placed in the altar.
The church is striking in its beauty and scale. Its central dome weighs 25 tons and was raised to a height of 50 meters in strong winds using a special crane weighing 500 tons.
The cathedral has golden domes coated using an electroplating process. With this technology, gold is not simply applied to the surface; its molecules penetrate the surface layer of the treated part.
The church is faced with carved white limestone from the Vladimir region. Similar stone was used in the ancient white-stone cathedrals of Vladimir, Suzdal, and Moscow.
The building has five floors, including an underground level. It contains main and smaller worship halls, a narthex, catholicon (central part of the church), solea, altar, choir lofts, and reception rooms.
The underground spaces house a spiritual and educational center, rooms for maintaining vestments and storing church utensils, and other facilities. The building has four elevators.
The church has a unique three-part baptismal font. Two sections are dry, while the central one is filled with water for baptisms. More than 160 people were baptized here in a year. The concrete font features compositions by St. Petersburg mosaic artist Igor Lavrenenko.
Forty-seven icons were painted especially for the church, most in the Russian-Byzantine tradition. Before the plaster was applied, the team decided to use 3D mapping (from the English word mapping, meaning projection). This audiovisual technique projects 3D imagery onto a physical object according to its geometry and location in space.
Specialists created a digital layout of icons for the walls and dome. At night, they projected images of saints inside the church to make the final artwork as accurate as possible. Artists began their work only after the 3D mapping stage.
The building systems are a point of pride for the builders and designers. They were developed using BIM (Building Information Modeling).
In short, the church was first built digitally as a 3D model in specialized software. It was not just a three-dimensional picture for structural calculations, but a shared model used by every discipline, from architects to cost estimators. It contained all information about the project.
The team could determine material quantities and the building's internal systems. More importantly, they could identify potential problem areas during design and correct them with a mouse click. A BIM model helps manage construction from design through commissioning, and BIM is now also used during building operations.
The church and all its building services were designed in the 3D model. A climate control system keeps visitors comfortable and protects the finishes and icons. It also has underfloor heating and supply-and-exhaust ventilation.
BIM made it possible to conceal the building systems carefully. All utilities run behind walls and ceilings, with access hatches provided for maintenance and repair. Technical rooms are located below the church.
The cathedral has Wi-Fi, and clergy use microphones and tablets to control lighting and sound. During services, audio can be broadcast outdoors and over the Internet. Similar technologies are already being introduced in Moscow. Hidden speakers are installed throughout the cathedral, with about 36 in the lower church alone.
Colleagues abroad now contact Sretensky Monastery for help implementing similar systems. Our specialists have already installed sound equipment in churches in San Francisco and Munich.
- Leading Moscow companies took part in the project
- general designer the Točka Sborki design workshop, chief architect and concept author Dmitry Smirnov, technical client Expertinzhstroy LLC, and general contractor Mostotrest PJSC.