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Catholic Church Projects |
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| faqs |
Questions appear during the process of church building. Here are some of the more pressing. Please contact us with your thoughts on these issues. We'll add new ideas continuously.
| What will our church look like? | appearance |
| How many people will our church seat? | capacity |
| Our church was built for the Latin rituals. Can we renovate it to support the current rituals? | changes |
| We're only replacing the worn carpeting. Should we add anything? | scope |
| My parents' name is on the altar. Why should we destroy what they created? | treasures |
| We want to build for the ages. Should we? | change |
| How should we choose our colors? | colors |
| Can we afford enough storage? | storage |
| Can we use carpeting? | acoustics |
| How long will our work last? | value |
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How long will it take to build? |
time |
| How much will it cost? | cost |
| How much will professional services cost? | fee cost |
| Can we raise enough money? | funds |
| How much will it cost to operate? | annual cost |
| How much would our historic church cost today? | historic cost |
| How much will our church cost in five years when we can afford it? | postponed cost |
| What's been your experience working with the committee? | committees |
| What's the team process? | team |
| How do we find a contractor and what documents should we use? | other team members |
| What's a good way to begin our meeting? | start |
| Can you talk to our parish? | communications |
| Who is John Voosen? | John Voosen |
8 square feet/person to 12 square feet/person. Explore a range of plans. Then use judgement to count the people.
When we renovated Our Lady Mother of the Church, the parish's children had mostly grown and moved out of the parish. The practical seating capacity in the pews was 600. As new generations move into the parish, the number of children will increase in comparison to adults and so will the seating capacity.
Go to our Seat/Area Estimator to explore capacity with your numbers.
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Our church was built for the Latin rituals. Can it be renovated to support the current rituals? |
YES. A Latin church's focus is the Tabernacle. Our focus today is the assembly and its actions.
A church's geometrical proportions give us direction for refocusing the interiors from the linear focus on the Tabernacle to today's multi-focii of the assembly. St. Luke's long, narrow nave restricted options for rearrangement. St. Nicholas's more open/central plan easily allowed the important changes. In fact, the new plan fits the original architecture's volumes better than the 1904 plan.
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We're only replacing the worn carpeting. Can we add anything? |
YES. Explore the opportunities to improve relationships among the liturgical foci - assembly, altar, ambo, font, and tabernacle - after the old carpet is removed.
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My parents' name is on the altar. Why should we destroy what they created? |
Don't destroy it. With respect, your treasures can provide even more effective support for your liturgies.
At St. Luke's in River Forest, IL, we discovered marble mosaics in the altar and sanctuary floor that hadn't been seen in over 25 years and had been forgotten by most. At St. Mark's in Evanston, IL, the touch of renovation was lighter but just as exciting. At St. Matthias in Chicago, the pastor, carpenter, and architect met almost daily to create the new foci from the original.
Yes and No. We should build churches that will last but gracefully allow change through the ages.
I've learned from renovation projects that living communities worship in living buildings - buildings that keep open their capacity to change as a community's needs change. I've gained respect for people who design buildings that gracefully allow change.
We build a church as the house of the community. It belongs not to an individual but to the community. We should have it express its timeless sense of sacred place and select its materials and building systems to optimize long-term costs.
visual symbols - movement - lighting - acoustics - all senses
Probably not.
There is an ancient rule of thumb that states that storage capacity will always be exceeded by 10%. The rule is very conservative.
But we can creatively use storage to help us shape our public spaces.
Yes. Each community should make its decision after listening to and understanding the competing desires of musicians, liturgists, and acoustical engineers.
The people at Divine Providence intentionally chose hard materials for the entire interior to help their music sound alive. The building's geometry and volume supported their decision.
After much study, the people of St. Thomas Becket (in development) replaced their worn carpet with new carpet. Their building's low, modern-box geometry required this decision.
The people at St. Nicholas engaged a talented sound engineer, Doug Jones, to help them hear the Word and each other in prayer and song. The building's great volume is shaped parallel walls and covered by spherical based vaults. Doug's solution involved hard floor softened by upholstered seating.
When we keep our decisions in the field of long-term, our church will last as long as the community.
| How long will it take to build our church? |
One year to discover and explore - one year to construct - up to 10 years to design - 24 months to construct.
A church can be designed and built when all of the issues about its design and construction are resolved. The process can be quick when the solutions are picked off-the-shelf or from a catalogue. But these solutions have no contributions from the local people or ownership by them. They recognize few of the unique conditions that each community and each site present.
Always more than you first think. Often because of scope creep. Please feel free to use our Ball Park Estimator to explore the numbers.
Every project is unique! Please contact us.
We can help your fund-raising. Our natural process of design involves dialogue with the entire community. Clear communications are required to pass on excitement about proposed solutions. We design in 3D, in color, and with animation. With skill, these tools clearly express the strengths (and weaknesses) of different ideas in a variety of media - renderings, photographs, web pages, CD-ROMs, and video. When audio is appropriate, we can tape your musicians for inclusion in your media.
(in development)
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While working on St. Mark's Episcopal Church, we began to investigate this question in depth. The church building was over 100 years old. Both our architectural firm and the general contracting firm began when St. Mark's was constructed. Jill Engelman and I joined our curiosities and talents. Our findings became the front page story The Bucks to Build Like Our Ancestors Built of Environment & Art Letter, October, 1998. We are developing a special historical cost calculator similar to the estimators on these pages. |
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How much will our church cost in five years when we can afford it? |
We are developing a special historical cost calculator similar to the estimators on these pages.
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How do we find a contractor and what documents should we use? |
We recently presented a workshop with Inspired Partnerships for 21 different congregations on the topics Understanding Contract Documents and Interviewing Contractors and Evaluation of Bids. Tom Golz, Director of Membership and Community Relations, wrote us, "I think everyone who attended left with a much clearer picture of the bid process, as well as some excellent handouts to use later." You may download and print the handouts from the links below.
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Yes, please contact us.