Design Distinction 1

Mission CC was looking for a few strategic ministry elements that would enable them to provide a very distinctive and powerful worship environment.....

Design Distinction 1: Acoustical Design

The original design criteria for architecture & acoustics had the architectural firm, DFDG & Associates in Phoenix, providing a "Theater in the Round" seating plan for Mission CC's worship center.  They had a good reason for this design concept: Pastor Mark really wanted the front of the platform (pulpit position), to be within 90 ft. of the farthest seat, so he would be very close to the people. He wanted excellent eye contact with everyone in the room, and a sense of being immersed within the congregation. 

Our first design challenge was to convince DFDG's designers that a theater in the round plan would not meet our acoustical performance goals, and would also be problematic for live sound & video systems.  As a result, we ended up redesigning the location & layout of the platform that included considerable thrust into a redesigned seating plan, and also created a production oriented back stage plan, and an overhead production grid for advanced set rigging, automated lighting & large scale video presentations. Working with DFDG's designers, we redesigned the angles of the gallery side walls to establish efficient sight lines for room acoustics, live sound, visual acuity and video presentations. The new results provided a distance from the farthest seat to the center, front platform point of 78 ft. thereby providing a vey intimate environment for preaching and teaching.

The church also wanted an acoustical environment that would support a concert style music & worship program. We therefore designed and specified acoustical treatment and design elements that optimized high impact concert style music with excellent results. The church leadership is very pleased with the work.