Anyone know of good info on church design, especially regarding acoustics?
With my mouth I will give great thanks to the Lord; I will praise Him in the midst of the throng. For He stands at the right hand of the needy, to save them from those who would condemn them to death.
– Psalms 109:30-31
Replies
New church or existing?
Sanctuary only, or a whole building? (Kitchen, meeting hall, classrooms, etc.)
What building style?
Your question was kinda vague...
Sorry - I should know better
We're planning a multi-use addition: gym (hoops and volleyball), worship, meeting, dining.
Obviously, a lot of compromises have to be made, but I'm looking right now to augment my argument that although a shoebox shape is good for "gym" it sucks for acoustics
And yes, a lot of magic in acoustics, but I'm amzed at the amount of science I've learned and found.
Of course, another issue is getting the powers that make the decisions to realize that $20,000 won't buy decent speakers, much less sound boards, lights, video and projection.
Classic battle of 'new age'/ post modern mentality v. 'old fashioned/outmoded/modernsm mentlity.
We/they want to be fishers for men, but they don't understand "the times they have been a'changin'"
How are you going to catch post-modernist experiential 'thinkers/learners' with a "See Dick Run" linear approach?
John 1:1 "In the beginning was the
WordLogos, and theWordLogos was with God, and theWordLogos was God."With my mouth I will give great thanks to the Lord; I will praise Him in the midst of the throng. For He stands at the right hand of the needy, to save them from those who would condemn them to death.
- Psalms 109:30-31
I will confirm that acoustics in a gym box are terrible. Our worship space was moved to St Gym while the church was being renovated. Acoustics were awful.
I think something more dome shaped might be more effective and still accomplish all the goals of athletics and worship space. In a tour of the Mormom tabernacle (sp) the ceiling was kind of dome shaped and the acoustics were spectacular.
Bruce
The acoustics are spectacular there because they are well managed. Domes are typically a bad idea because the sound from any source is focused in other places but the dome is mostly taken out of the equation by being the height it is (focal points are above the seating areas), the surfaces are properly chosen to minimize reflections and the direct sound is equalized well and because of this, the source of the sound seems to be the person speaking, not a set or array of speakers. They are very specific in their choices of electronic equipment for their facilities. They will also only buy from approved vendors who have at least one LDS member on staff.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
There's a whole sub-industry in sound reinforcement called "House Of Worship" design and there are audio contractors who specialize in this exclusively. Some will do the acoustics themselves but I suspect that most will leave it up to an acoustician. A shoebox can be a good design, depending on the ratios. .6:1:1.6 and .8:1:1.25 are pretty common but in order for speech to be intelligible, it will need teh right amount of reflective/absorbtive/diffusive surfaces and a lot of attention to the initial reflection surfaces. I see that they want to have athletics in there so music, speech, announcements, and all of the noise that comes with people cheering and yelling will need a lot of absorption. You'd be surprised by what you can buy for $20K. Find a supplier who will set up an account for institutions, like Parts Express. They have PA equipment, accessories, parts, mics, stands and just about anything else you may need. I would recommend renting the lights at first, or even the audio equipment, so you can find out exactly what works without being on the hook for a lot of stuff that's not doing the job. Go to a music store that rents equipment and talk to them The acoustics will have to be dealt with in the design phase, though. The use of the space will determine the treatments. If the budget allows, heavy curtains or movable partitions that can be brought out when needed can add flexibility to the room. The partitions should be flat or rough on one side and soft/absorbent on the other. You can get an equipment rack on wheels and connect it to the speakers/wall mounted mic inputs if you want or do a fixed mount for the amplifiers/mixer/sources (CD/DVD/VCR/etc) and use either wireless mics or place jacks on the walls in multiple locations. The engineer I have dealt with is in TX and deals with LDS facilities.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
Bob,
I wish I could direct you to a concise study on acoustics, but my Board at church has learned the hard way that it's not really an exact science. Every building, every space is different.
We converted out old sanctuary into a 3/4 court basketball court. We had a hard enough time with acoustics when we used the space for worship, but when we took up the carpet and took out the seating and the people, we had a nightmare. Hard surfaces everywhere, cmu walls, a hard surface floor. Sound would just bounce and bounce.
We covered as many wall surfaces as we could with soundboard, threw as much money as we could at it, then did more. Our ceiling is flat drywall. Every "expert" we had in to look at it suggested texturing or somehow treating the ceiling. Everything from hanging canvas banners to padded acoustical tiles. Problem is its 30 feet up, and whatever we did would have to stand up to a hard hit by a basketball. This space was a study in what not to do, acoustically.
One thing we did was to make panels of inexpensive carpet. We made stretchers out of 2 x 2's, the panels were 5 feet by 5 feet. This seems to have worked pretty well.
My best "expert" was Director of Music at the local Community College. Might be a resource for some free information. Guys like that seem to know a lot about how sound behaves.
If it's a new building you're designing, let me tell you about our biggest goof on our new building. We were using an architectural firm that really wasn't in the business of designing churches. None of us caught the fact that there were no floor drains for the areas (upstairs) leading into and out of the baptistry. On a morning that we might have 12 baptisms, there is a lot of water to squeegie into the pool. Big oversight !
Greg
Edited 3/15/2007 4:17 pm ET by GregGibson
Our church did a similar conversion of the old sanctuary, and the sound solution was to suspend two large panels from the ceiling, at different angles. The panels fill most of the "ceiling", but there's a margin of several feet around the edge and down the middle where sound can get up into the "attic" and get trapped.It looks a little odd, but appears to work. I'm guessing the scheme was cooked up by a consultant for the architects.Church design is really a complicated business -- probably one of the most difficult structures to design, from several aspects. It's worth it to pay experts. (Our church used Station 19 in Minneapolis, an outfit that sort of specializes in churches.)
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
Acoustics are important as is seating capacity , bench spacing and aisle space. I designed one a few years ago and gleaned info online, finding lots of help.
"Anyone know of good info on church design, especially regarding acoustics"
Yup ... Stone Henge!
Jeff
Buck Construction
Artistry In Carpentry
Pittsburgh Pa
One more thought, Bob; something that was pointed out to me in our study. Movie theaters usually have heavy drapes, but they often hang right in front of a CMU wall. I'm talking side walls, not the stage / screen area. Looks soft, but lean on the curtain, and it's plain masonry behind it. Drapery fabric is pretty expensive by the yard, but if it can be incorporated into decor / color scheme, it might fly.
Greg
rj,
Boston symphony hall is an elongated shoe box considered to be number 3 acoustically in the WORLD.
Basic proportions have to be perfect; then you treat the surfaces.
Stage has to have sloping walls to funnel out the sound.
For what it's worth, I'm a music guy. No training in acoustics per se but plenty of real world experience.
You want to do two things with sound:
1) control reverberation (bouncing off surfaces like a beam of light in a mirror). The thing is, you DONT want to eliminate it and you DONT want it to reflect so many times that the "echo" lasts more than a fraction of a second. So what you want are surfaces that will only reflect a portion of the incoming sound. With each reflection, the volume diminishes.
2) scatter the reflection - this is the part that people forget. You want the sound coming from a pinpoit source to hit surfaces of multiple angles so that it scatters. This way, every portion of the room will receive roughly the same mix of sound regarless of where in the room the sound sources are.
Specially trained acousticians can tell you exactly what to do and a decent architect can shape the space for the acoustician to finish, but it sounds to me like you are on a shoestring budget here and $100,000 worth of "consulting" plus the $100,000 of treatments they would suggest might be out of your reach. If I'm correct, here are some practical suggestions;
If possible, avoid parallel walls and a ceiling that is parallel to the floor.
Stay away from the hardest surfaces - concrete, steel, tile, sheetrock - wood is a reasonable alternative
Panels of soft material like those industrial "acoustical" tiles work to some degree, but boy are they cheesey looking, and they do nothing to direct sound.
Panels of heavy fabric alternated with multi-angled panels of a harder material (like wood) probably will give you the best mix of sound absorbtion and reflection. They don't need to cover the entire wall or ceiling surface. I see a lot of rooms where about 1/3 of the wall space is treated and about 2/3 of the ceiling space is treated. Multi-angled can mean almost anything from gentle arches (bent 4x8 sheets of ply) to funky flattened cubes. Lots of room here for creativity and it doesn't have to cost a fortune.
The good news/bad news here is that, while it's really difficult to get an acoustically bad space fixed perfectly without professional help, it's also extreamly easy to improve a bad space drastically no matter what you do, as long as you try with a little common sense.