We are using this page to discuss/share and track the design of our new parish church.
Quick Links that are relevant for the current discussion. (11/16/21):
- Church Patterns: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UdHPsdh1a8N8y_6FbtkRuJ5CWtiEq8Me1zSPuKPI37g/edit?pli=1
- Anti-Patterns: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1G184CdyV45_Dvj-uObCQgLdeqnNmFZ4jvJD9f2Ir7KE/edit?pli=1
(use your google login so we can see who is saying what)
The Timeless Way of Building:
http://library.lol/main/7B0EB439990E88F83A4583821E415C7E
Audiobook: https://mega.nz/folder/gqJhzY6Z#yVvx4noEUQqB2ybuxZC71A (may need to rename downloaded file to .m4a in order to play)
A Pattern Language:
http://library.lol/main/6A09E611680C7FA35B6C06824962A9A1
Ch. 6 of The Ethics of Beauty: “The Mystical Architect”.
https://app.box.com/s/lqq7yy7clu4l978kldyntqdg2k5ckrg4
(note: pages 424-27 are a decent 3 page summary of The Timeless Way of Building;
pages 427-30 connect Alexander’s ‘Patterns’ to the Presence of God in all things)
Grounds level patterns summary:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/16AfXvaHrt1rXAV-wBY5IKJh2jJc-xxb44okPPGQMAas/edit?usp=sharing
Outdoor stairs:
Here’s an issue that has come up. They are waiting for an answer from me, so if you have thoughts on this let me know right away.
As you know, we have been designing the building with a second staircase on the outside of the building up to the balcony. This wasn’t what we wanted, but the size of the balcony required it. So we decided to make the most of it and make it as nice as possible.
But Jeannette raised the question with me and we looked at it a bit more closely. The rule about this, to put it simply, is that anything that holds over 50 people requires a second set of stairs, and that number is in-turn defined by square footage. It turns out that, after all of the tweaks that have been done, and when you count carefully, excluding everything you’re allowed to (such as landings and “hallways”, etc), we are a few square feet short of hitting that requirement. So we now have the option of removing that second staircase.
Andrew is fine either way as far as aesthetics and such things are concerned. He offered this list of pros and cons:
The disadvantages of removing the stair:
The advantages of removing the stair:
I don’t find the above disadvantages very compelling, and the only comments I remember hearing from people about the second staircase were negative, mostly about chasing children around in circles and so on.
Having the access be via a single staircase seems desirable to me, from a “patterns” perspective. It is plenty wide to allow for two-way traffic, and a single access point seems more predictable/manageable to me.
I’ve never experienced a church with a second floor balcony door, so I don’t directly know what it implies for human traffic patterns, but I can’t think of any way it could be better.
Anyway, comments?
I’ll channel those contingency thinkers: in the event that there is some situation where those in the north balcony need to exit quickly, there are a number of obstacles/choke points if there is no exit from the balcony. This is uncomfortable, not just in a way that might prevent those folks from using the balcony, but in a way that hangs in the mind because others you care about are in that space. This is currently one of the burdens that these folks bear in regards to the current balcony, which is smaller.
If we are talking patterns, one conflict that needs resolution is the possibility of getting trapped upstairs. That conflict seems to be more important to the overall parish vibe than the logistical issues with traffic patterns on the north outside the sanctuary.
Here are the “final” plans from Andrew:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gju-inhlU_du3v1cPu9rRhFXCOVGjE5t/view
Jeannette is now in the process of reviewing them and adding structural specifications and so on. If that goes well and if her changes don’t screw up anything Andrew intended, then the “A” (architectural) and “S” (structural) plans will be done. But I imagine that negotiation isn’t quite done.
Meanwhile I have been meeting with the mechanical engineers to get those plans done, which are HVAC, Electrical, plumbing, and fire alarms. They are not going very fast, so I’m imagining another 5-6 weeks of that.
Also, if you haven’t seen them yet, here is the final external artistic rendering:
And the internal:
I got these from a local artist that Jeannette recommended to me. I quite like them!
Concerning the internal one, I though it would be interesting to include some of the iconography, in a blurry sketched way, so as to indicate iconography without being too explicit. That worked for the icons on the iconostas, since they are far enough away from the viewer. But the attempts on the nearer walls did not work since they were way too clearly NOT icons, and thus distracting. So I had him leave those off.
I asked Gabriel to take a look at it and see if closer-up icongraphy could be added. But I’m not sure it’s a good idea to get that specific yet. He’s going to ponder the issue and see if it is worth solving.
Just thought I’d drop these here–some chandeliers from Constantinople in the height of the Byzantine period. Saw them at Dumbarton Oaks museum in D.C. last month. (One is leaning on its side; the other two are hanging as they would be in use.) Just thought they were interesting to consider as they have the wrought iron look Andrew goes for but are 2-dimensional and perhaps less “oppressive” to the eye.
I came across this article which might be of some interest to this group:
https://psyche.co/ideas/how-the-buildings-you-occupy-might-be-affecting-your-brain
In a nutshell, it reads to me like a neuroscience explanation for the same sort of things that Christopher Alexander says.
Building update 8/30/2024
The set of plans we have from Andrew are marked as “50%”, which is some sort of demarkation in the architecture world that doesn’t really mean half-way, as I’ve learned. In our case it’s more like 80%. Andrew is doing the “A” (architectural) sheets, and Jeannette is going to do the “S” (structural) sheets. And there are also other technical sheets for hvac/plumbing/ada compliance, etc.
Here is an example full set of completely done drawings for the church he finished in Denton Texas:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/17wUqkCzswZkspzRjbg_G1So-KOQ6ehq-/view
The work that Andrew has to do yet are the details of things like doors and windows and precasted elements and trim and so on, which you can see in those plans. Ours will look a lot like the stuff he did for Denton.
It took a little while to get Andrew and Jeannette on the same page because the boundaries between the categories (architectural vs structural) are more gray than you might think. Mainly, Andrew includes structural specifications when they are relevant to the aesthetic of the building, but only when it matters, and usually without much detail, intending to leave those sorts of things for Jeannette to fill in. But that wasn’t very clear to her. I think it’s the first time she’s ever worked with anyone doing anything like Andrew does. I met with them both separately to piece this boundary problem together, and then finally we all three met this week to clarify all of that. So for the moment it seems that the logjam is now cleared.
So Jeannette is now ready (in terms of what she needs from Andrew) to start working on her part. But, because of other projects, she can’t start for a month or so, and then she’ll need a couple weeks to do it. So that puts us about two months out. Andrew said he will be done with the rest of his detailed element pages by then. So, in theory, they will both be done in about two months, we set a date of Oct 23rd. And there are a few other smaller parts (like the HVAC, electric, etc) that Jeannette and I will work together with third parties (eg, hvac engineer) to get done in the same time frame.
At that point, when both are done, they will look at what the other has done and make sure that everything fits together. If not, there will be some more going back and forth with revisions.
The bill we got from Andrew for the plans so far was for another 20K. <sigh>.
I asked him what it’s going to cost for him to finish, and he estimated another 50-70 hours (eg, another $10K-14K). So obviously I want to get as much of the rest of the work out of his hands and into Jeannette’s as soon as possible. :-/. Sheesh.
At any rate, what we have so far is enough to start looking for builders. So I started a page to gather together all the information a builder might want to know, which is here:
https://orthodoxchurchalbion.org/buildersearch/
Colm contributed the “Request for Proposals” document referenced there. I (and Colm) would be glad to have any comments about it, in wording or otherwise. I’ve started to send it to builders I’m aware of in the area, and so far I’ve got two “we are interested, keep us in the loop” replies. But I’m on the lookout for more, so if you know of any builders that would be interested, let me know and I’ll reach out to them.
We also still need “presentations renderings” to help with fund-raising. I asked around at church of all the people who have drawing talent, but no one feels up for it, or they haven’t gotten back to me. So I’m pursuing some leads to hire someone for that (rather than keeping on Andrew for that part).
I also chatted with Andrew about some other design details that I was curious about, or that people had brought up to me from looking at the plans:
** I noticed that the awnings and staircase on the outside of north side were all specified as “steel”, which made me picture a fire-escape looking thing. But he assured me that steel things, formed and painted properly, can be quite nice, and sent me some example of what he’s planning:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/lrx3l6geni3xjr7lnlegl/AIUWRxbl0zp_6GGw6xpdS4Q?rlkey=c1hsaf7qmn34ipodyt890umq5&e=1&dl=0
And indeed, they are pretty cool looking. So I asked him to plan for the same such awnings over the main (west) doors and also over the stairs going down from the south side of the porch. (since they were not in his plans).
** Another question was gutters or drains? He thought either way would work, but not having gutters would be much harder to deal with because of the small overhang all around the building. He also pointed out that you can get gutters that look really nice, like those half circle copper gutters.
** I asked about the hip in the roof at the far west side. There wasn’t a structural reason for it, he had tried it without and just thought it looked a lot better to have those two lines in the roof interrupted by that hip. I think I agree.
** I also asked about maybe raising up the altar floor another step, so that there would be two steps instead of one. It would be easy enough to add a the step in the doorway between altar and sacristy, which wouldn’t change any other elements. I personally don’t have terribly strong feelings about this question – to me one step seems too low, but three feels too high, so I could go for two.
He said he would take a look by trying it in the 3D model. He says high altars (3 steps or more) tend to go hand in hand with a high iconostasis, which makes sense because the taller the altar, the more it would block any view you would get of the iconography in the apse, so you might as well focus on the iconostasis.
But early on we seem to have opted (mostly by shrugging?) for a 1 (or 1.5) level shorter iconostasis, around which he made design choices, such as the visibility of the apse. So raising it up more would block the apse more, depending on where you’re standing. So he was skeptical about raising it any more, but said he’d take a look. (although I’m not sure if he actually will).
That’s all I can think of for now!
Here is the latest set of drawings from Andrew:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PqzS6bqlu_c4eozAczxPx1XNhREF2BU8/view
If you’re only casually following the progression, you won’t really notice anything different. It’s basically what we’ve seen on the previous releases, but with all the detail and dimensions drawn in.
I thought we were going to have twelve windows around the cupola, to put each of the eleven disciples and the theotokos, one to each of the twelve spaces between the windows. He has it drawn with eight windows. I’m curious how the iconography plan has changed to accommodate that.
Latest revisions are here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mOkSlusWpdR9XOVHaYkFOP-yrKh6Us-b/view
Concerning the issues I raised from the last drawing set:
The door was moved as we asked, and he rearranged the landings on the north side to accommodate the door move. The basement bilco doors moved to the southeast corner. That’s the area we’ll use for utility type things – AC compressor, exhaust pipes, etc.
The main floor got changed from concrete into wood (I-joists). So now there is row of center supports down the middle of the basement to hold them. And the basement is rather tall now. Ask me more about that if you’re interested.
The previous drawings had the basement extended to be under the outside porch. No need for that, so now it only goes under the conditioned space.
We had a long discussion about stairs and the narthex. The basement stairs are now under the balcony stairs, which got shifted around a bit to accommodate it. Having the two staircases together will give us more space in the narthex closets. And now basement access will go directly into the nave so that should make getting stuff in and out of storage easier. And he arranged it in such a way as to maximize the wall space for people to stand against.
So now the south side of the narthex has a separate closet and coat room, the latter without a door, and the other doors now open INTO the narthex. He thinks the way the coat room is arranged w/out a door and with the walls placed as they are, that it will minimize the view of the chaos that might happen there, while still keeping it relatively easy for people to move in and out of. If it ends up being too much, adding a door would be trivial. And if it ends up not being enough space, we could remove the non-load-bearing wall between it and the closet next to it. Hopefully we don’t have to because a closet right there would be pretty handy.
I seem to have gotten the email thing with this blog resolved, so hopefully you’re all getting this.
But note that,
a) as before, you can’t reply to the email to post something or respond to the sender, you have to do it via the blog, and
b) if you have trouble logging into the blog to post something, note the instructions at the top of the login page that say that after you have logged in, you need to return to the blog and RELOAD it. :-). (Sorry this is so clunky, I can’t figure out how to make it transfer back to original page automatically. )
Anyway….
If you didn’t see my post from two weeks ago, here are the plans Andrew sent us:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/11sUjHVfxqgzyOm097f1h_aQLkr1XjAam/view
As I mentioned, they are not nearly the full set of construction drawings I was hoping to have by now, but maybe they’re far enough along to start to show to builders and get some ballpark numbers. Andrew’s estimates, given the other buildings he’s done that are going to bid right now, is that ours will be about 3 million. But Jeanette thinks it will be less.
I’ll forward Andrew’s email (below) that he sent with the drawings. He’ll be back working on our stuff, he says, after he returns from his trip. That is, in theory, Monday the 24th.
So that gives us this coming week to gather any comments we have on the existing plan before it moves ahead. As he says, we’ll want to identify any basic issues now, before these get turned into final construction drawings.
The only thing I see that I really don’t like is the location of the two side doors together at the northeast corner. I’m glad to have a door to the sacristy there, behind the iconostasis, but not the general door right next to it. Having it way up in the front corner like that is too exposed and people would be reluctant to use it, it seems to create a bad human traffic pattern. Whereas if we put it on the west side of the north transept, or thereabouts, then it could easily be used to slip in and out of the courtyard (especially with kids, etc). (See the attached picture). And it would empty out nicely near the bottom of the outside stairs coming from the balcony, making it easy to get anywhere.
In that spot outside the building, where I’d like the door to be, he placed “bilco” doors, which are the slanted doors that go from outside a building directly into the basement, for getting big things in and out. That’s a utility sort of thing to me, and doesn’t seem well-suited for the nicer-looking courtyard I had in mind. I’m thinking the southeast corner (see attached drawing) would be a good place that sort of utility stuff, like those doors, and the AC Compressors, etc. We could put a nice fence or something around them so that they’re not easily visible when approaching from the parking area.
Besides that I can’t see any obvious issues. If you have anything, weigh in soon. I’ll call Jeanette next week and ask her what she thinks about the drawings and how close we are to getting quotes, etc.
————————
From: Andrew Gould <>
Date: Fri, May 31, 2024 at 6:38?PM
Subject: RE: Drawing title information
To: Jeannette Woodard` <>, Fr Joshua Frigerio <>
Hi Fr. Joshua and Jeanette,
I’ve made a great deal of progress on design-development drawings for the church. Attached is a review set in both PDF and DWG.
In the PDF set, I’ve laid the elevations, plans, and sections out on sheets for convenience of review. In a few places I’ve zoomed in on wall-section details and dropped in a few notes so you can see what materials are represented. Beyond that, I think the drawings will be pretty self-explanatory. Obviously, once this goes into construction drawings there will be a million more notes and dimensions and details.
Fr. Joshua – you should carefully review this to be sure you’re happy with the design and functionality. There are some new features you’ve not seen before – like the basement stair and the exterior stairs and ramps. Any changes you might want should be identified now, before we move into construction drawings. I recommend you print the PDF full size (24″x36″) so you can see the drawings clearly.
Jeanette – I think all the wall sections are in line with what we’ve been discussing, so hopefully there will be no surprises there. I wasn’t sure how you’ll want to handle the basement. For now, I’ve drawn formed-concrete basement walls transitioning to CMU just below grade. The floor system is shown as steel I-joists and corrugated steel decking with slab. I don’t know anything basement construction in Michigan, so happy to defer to your expertise if you have a different way you want to do it. Any changes you want – just let me know and I’ll adjust my drawings accordingly.
If you want to start moving on structural design (especially the basement and floor system), the CAD file should have all the layout info you’ll need.
I’m heading abroad for 3 weeks starting tomorrow. Best wishes.
Andrew
I agree with the door placement change, and the need for the basement entrance to be elsewhere.
— Daniel
Oh, glad you caught that door by the altar. I regularly visit a church where the only door to the hall is next to the altar, and I consider it a prime example of a broken pattern. Very awkward.
Does anyone have any thoughts about this? I’ve attached a picture of the area I’m talking about, which is the closet and stairway on the south side of the narthex.
He put in a wall and doors there – one door to the closet and one to the stairway.
I’m wondering why.
I imagine we’d be using that closet space for coat racks, but wouldn’t it be sorta hidden and awkward with the doors like that? Why not leave that area open for easy and obvious access to coat racks? Or maybe a door’ish type of transition without an actual door?
And why put a door in front of the stairs? The intent of the basement is storage and utility, so no need for people to wander down there …. so maybe making it less obvious with a door is good? Seems to use up space though. Hmmm.
I would understand the door for the stairs to the basement to reduce the temptation of wandering children, but the places I have seen coat closets with doors are pretty awkward.
I think we should keep the door to the basement (and maybe keep it locked when not in use) to keep out wandering children and/or confused visitors.
I agree that we don’t want a door to the coat closet area, but in my mind keeping that a doorway-sized entrance is nice. Yes, it may impede traffic a bit, but our coat dumping areas are traditionally, to put it kindly, less than beautiful, and I wouldn’t want that to be visible to someone as they walk through the front doors of the church.
It occurs to me that Andrew may have had in mind that we’d primarily be using the hall for coat racks (which I think is still part of our vision–people go in there first for Sunday School, to drop off food, etc., then come over to the church) and thought this one in the narthex was just a storage closet.
How about this instead? I attached a picture. I removed the doors and instead put a door directly on the staircase. And I pulled in the walls a bit where the doors used to be, to sort of off-set the space as being something separate.
I think we should leave it the way he has it drawn. Those two doors match the two directly across from them on the north side of the of the narthex. By taking out the wall or removing the door and frame the effect of the symmetry will be lost and the space will be lopsided, creating a broken pattern where people will congregate instead of being directed east to the nave. We could prop the door open all winter, or even take it off the hinges, but in the summer it will be nice to close it.
I think I recall that, in Andrew’s church in Charleston, the narthex has the same symmetry – two matching doors on each side. I remember that they were not labeled so I was rather confused trying to figure out which way to go. 🙁
But I don’t really remember the effect of it one way or another when it comes to beauty/patterns.
Thinking about it, they seem to almost always be lopsided in some way or another. If not the space itself, there’s a candle-desk, or a pamphlet rack, or a coat area or bathrooms or hallways or whatever that often seem to only go in one direction. (Not saying this is good, just noticing it.)
I have noticed ugly coat rooms, but I have also been annoyed where there wasn’t one at all, or one that is too hard to find. So maybe something that makes it clear where it is, without being obnoxious. The monastery seems to have accomplished this by making it out of your sight path to the right, but still easy to find.
But mostly as I think about this, I’m noticing I haven’t thought about narthex traffic patterns very much, probably because we don’t have one to speak of in our current situation.
Luke: I’m not seeing how having the door would lead to less congregating, it’s not intuitive to me. But I’m interested to chat about it. I’d like to also ask Andrew his thinking on this point.
I’d say let’s move this to in-person. Let’s try to get together at coffee hour and talk it through a bit more.
As he mentioned he wants any changes by this coming week. Submitting changes like this after this round is going to start costing us money. So this is everyone’s last chance to look closely at this layout for any potential issues.
I chatted with several of you and am still mulling this over, and now I have a new question.
It’s typical to put one staircase over another to make the best use of space. But instead he separated the two staircases, putting the basement stairs in that closet we’ve been talking about, instead of under the stairs to the balcony.
There’s nothing wrong with doing that if separating them serves some other goal higher than space conservation. But I’m not really seeing that it does here… or?
Why not put the stairs to the basement under the balcony stairs?
Option 1: See the attached picture, the arrow I labeled “A”.
Instead of the little closet door he put there, we could have a door going down to the basement. Since it’s a utility/storage basement that shouldn’t get any use during a service, I’m not seeing it creating any pattern problems – people could stand in front it same as if it were just a wall. And I can see a practical advantage to getting things in and out of the main church space if it were there, not to mention the space we’d get back from that potential coat-room.
Option 2: See the same picture where I wrote the “B”.
If there is a good reason to keep the entrance to the basement out of the main church, we could flip the balcony staircase around so that the high part is toward the west (same configuration as the one we have in our current church). If we do, we could put the door to the basement where I wrote the B, ie, at the back of the coat room. We’d gain all the space back in the coat room in this scenario too.
Thoughts?
I’m trying to fix this building design blog so that people receive emails when a post is made, it seems to have broken. I just put in a fix that seems to have worked on other blogs. So, if you’re reading this email, would you let me know that you got it?
Either by text or email to .
thanks.
Christ is risen!
If you are getting this email, would you let me know?
At least a few people didn’t get an email update from the blog when, 10 days ago, I posted the latest Andrew plans here. If it isn’t sending out notifications (or they are being blocked somewhere), we might have to consider switching platforms or something. 🙁
Here are Andrew’s latest drawings:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/11sUjHVfxqgzyOm097f1h_aQLkr1XjAam/view
Not much to surprise you here, these are mostly just technical layouts of what we already knew. But we’ll need to make sure we’re good with these layouts because the subsequent work all depends on these. I don’t see any issues with them.
These are still not the final construction drawings I had hoped for. I had the impression we’d have detail enough by now to start asking for bids, but I’m not sure that we do. I’ll talk with Jeanette next week and see what she thinks.
During our earlier study of Christopher Alexander’s stuff, I somehow missed this article:
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2016/02/making-the-garden
It’s interesting because it’s his summary of how one finds God in architecture.
Meanwhile Andrew is still promising to have us plans by the end of this week. So, God-willing, maybe we’ll be getting together again and moving this forward soon!
Some random photos from Russian Instagram I’ve been meaning to post. I thought this was an interesting and different direction for a chandelier than some of the work we’ve been considering/seen from Andrew.
I also really love how these choir stands are built and set up. Allows for much more visibility of the director. These seem to be pretty common among the Russian churches I follow online. Also I appreciate the warm lamps.
The clearing of trees is moving right along. See attached picture.
This is from Andrew’s facebook post. He installed some of his chandeliers last week, I gathered the pictures and put them here:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/hYsqgpgN3NRzo4Na9
This was the first time I saw them installed and really liked them – seems to mesh with the churches he put them in much better than I’ve seen so far. Couldn’t tell you why though. ?
This is what he wrote:
Last week I went up north to install chandeliers in two churches – St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Pittsburgh, and St. Mark Orthodox Church near Detroit. I worked very long days for a week and got all eight fixtures completed just in time for Christmas. Each project included one of my distinctive ‘choros’ chandeliers – a type of fixture that hangs from the perimeter of the cupola, invented in medieval Serbia. These ones are seventeen feet in diameter with 64 electric candles and 24 hanging oil lamps.
I think you might be liking these ones more because both of these churches have darker ceilings than some of Andrew’s? Versus some of his with plaster ceilings/walls (particularly where iconography has not yet been finished so everything is very white/bright), where the dark ironwork stands out more.
Incidentally, Susan and I were chrismated in the second church pictured (St Alexander Nevsky in Pgh) and I can attest that in person it is…not the prettiest church, to put it mildly. The photography is doing it some favors here. But I think the fact that the chandeliers are working (and in fact improving the space) attests both to Andrew’s artistic eye (in suiting a chandelier to a given space) and the powerful effect of his chandeliers, which have always reminded me of being in the Hagia Sophia–these broad, low-hanging chandeliers beneath very high, soaring ceilings, bespeaking something of heaven reaching down to earth. (Sorry for the poetics; it’s 11 pm on a fast-free Friday.)
Yes, I think both the dark interiors help and also not much light coming in from outside (overcast days in both cases). And no wall lighting. Makes it go from dark to semi-light as you from the perimeter of the church toward the middle.
And also the chandeliers are not significantly blocking the iconography behind them, as I’ve seen his chandeliers do in other places.
Of course, with his chain design, we wouldn’t be able to swing it at all. 🙂
That’s especially true when you’re up close. I went up to St. Marks when he was installing them and got to look at and hold the preassembled pieces. Besides the machine-stamped look, the other thing weird was the fake candle fixtures, complete with fake wax dripping down the sides of them, all stamped in plastic. (although honestly I’m not sure I can think of a better fixture to use just there.)
However, you don’t really notice either of those things as much once it’s up, and even less so once you step back from it a bit.
FWIW, Fr Joseph (at St. Gregory Palamas monastery) didn’t care for Andrew’s chandeliers and instead had one made by Aiden Hart. I’ve attached a picture. It’s a lot more curvy and flows and doesn’t have the CNC-cut look to it at all. (and, of course, it swings!)
Ooo, I like that!
I also really like this! The reason I’ve articulated not liking his chandeliers thus far is largely how dark the metal looks against a bright/light background. Doesn’t seem to fit. I hadn’t seen the quality up close though.
Here is the latest floorplan from Andrew:
https://app.box.com/s/1fvzpc3uxwglgnefj3tje1mmvsnfubsc
I’ve attached an overlay of our current church (red lines) over the new church. Each square is 1 square foot.
It’s a bit hard to calculate standing-floor-space because of all the pillars and things, but my current guess is a 974 sq ft increase on the main floor (from 1238 to 2212). That’s about a 78% increase.
The balcony size is roughly doubling (260 to 525), plus the walkway between the two.
And there’s also the Narthex, about 375 more square feet of lingering space.
So, all told, that’s quite a larger space increase than I was thinking we we’re talking about.
Not sure what to think about that….
Since I’ve finally bothered to login again… I think this additional space is great! Looking at the main floor, I think what you’re essentially doing is moving the choir out of our existing amount of standing space–that’s where the main additions are in this layout. And if you think about places people are reluctant to stand (close to the iconostas/ambon, or in the middle “aisle,” or up near the front icon veneration “paths”), this layout, on the opposite “wing” from the choir (I know there is a proper word for this but again, 11 pm on a fast-free Friday) (thus also all the parentheticals; I apologize) gives you “up-front” space that is NOT in the middle of those paths/points of standing-resistance. Frankly, I think I’d feel nervous if we were looking at a building plan that didn’t give us at least this much additional standing space.
The thing I’ve always disliked about Andrew’s chandeliers is that they look machine made, specifically CNC water jet cut pieces of sheet metal instead of hand worked iron. While I’m not opposed to technologically complex, computer controlled, labor saving tools in general, I do think their products, especially in such a central and visible place, detract from the aesthetics of Orthodox Church architecture and design.
A small miracle – we got designs from Andrew!
Here are a bunch of pictures he sent me:
https://app.box.com/s/7wo70ig9liwi9nqf1s94nn6gmrabcyuo
I’ll share them at the parish meeting tomorrow, if I can get the tech to work.
Here is the email he sent with them:
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Hi Fr. Joshua,
I’ve made a great deal of progress. The interior of the church is essentially fully designed, and I’ve totally rebuilt the 3D model with all the current details. The iconostasis and choros are still placeholders, but everything that’s actually part of the architecture is accurately modeled.
Attached you’ll find a current floor plan and 37 screenshots of the model.
A note on the windows: They look a bit plain in the screenshots, but the idea is that they’ll be fitted with leaded glass – mostly clear, but in decorative patterns. I attached a couple photos to give you an idea of what the glass will be like.
A small miracle – we got designs from Andrew!
Here are a bunch of pictures he sent me:
https://app.box.com/s/7wo70ig9liwi9nqf1s94nn6gmrabcyuo
I’ll share them at the parish meeting tomorrow, if I can get the tech to work.
Here is the email he sent with them:
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Hi Fr. Joshua,
I’ve made a great deal of progress. The interior of the church is essentially fully designed, and I’ve totally rebuilt the 3D model with all the current details. The iconostasis and choros are still placeholders, but everything that’s actually part of the architecture is accurately modeled.
Attached you’ll find a current floor plan and 37 screenshots of the model.
A note on the windows: They look a bit plain in the screenshots, but the idea is that they’ll be fitted with leaded glass – mostly clear, but in decorative patterns. I attached a couple photos to give you an idea of what the glass will be like.
Andrew was ready for another short meeting yesterday. The columns got smaller and changed a bit, the balconies got connected, and a few other things. But I’m having trouble getting pictures to illustrate so I’ll post again once I have them.
Here’s a short lecture from Andrew Gould on some of the side aspects of church beauty: textiles (icon stand covers, etc), flowers, embroidery, carpentry, and so on.
In particular I enjoyed the attempt to bring together the ethos of Orthodox traditional beauty with the beauty/style/tradition of American craft traditions.
https://orthodoxartsjournal.org/lecture-exploring-church-as-the-center-of-our-life/
I have a few questions. Will that dampen the acoustics? The balconies come quite far forward. I wonder if that is a big reason why sound does not carry well in the monastery church. I’m also wondering how much the arches coming down from the ceiling are going to dampen the acoustics. Are the apses smaller in this version?
Andrew told me up the other day and said he’s full-time on our design now.
He had done a rough 3D-modeled of the inside of the church and asked me to jump on zoom and have a look.
The pictures I attached are two from the rough modeling software, one facing east and one west.
There are no full renderings of ours yet, but I also included two such pictures he gave me of another church he’s working on that is almost the same as ours at the front.
The only surprise change he made was that he split our balcony into two small balconies, as he didn’t want any balcony over the main doors. With the proportions/size of this church, it felt-too cave-like to him, and he didn’t like how you couldn’t see the dome/arches/etc when you came in until you walked half way in. (I kind of thought that would be a cool effect, but I can also see how that could go too far. maybe? hmm.)
Our previously planned balcony was of a size that it was going to need two staircases (fire code). We had a discussion back then of maybe having one of them be outside, to save floor space, and so on. Smaller balconies (that hold 50 or less) are only required to have a single staircase, but since there are two balconies now, it’s basically the same thing as far as stairs go.
Anyway, I told him to forge ahead! 🙂
Off the bat, two balconies seems really impractical to me. I could envision a lot of scenarios where you go upstairs looking for someone or something and end up having to go all the way back down and up the other side (ie, looking for a kid during service). It might also double our stair problems, though I suppose we might not have been able to to avoid that anyway.
The cave effect also seems like it has equal but different problems in each scenario. Taking the monastery as an example, maybe you see everything when entering the church, but the two side balconies seem to direct people to stand almost exclusively under them on each side, which means you get the cave effect for *all of the service* instead. Even though the staircases look like they take up most of that space in this rendering, the balconies still have that same effect of making the whole center space feel like an aisle/walkway, even though it’s way too much floor space to be reserved for that. I think it would still feel vaguely uncomfortable to stand in that center space, similar to the monastery.
I’m having a hard time picturing the problem with one back balcony. Would St. Tikhon’s be a good comparison? That certainly doesn’t constrain where people stand, and to my mind it has a *lot* less of a cave effect than the monastery does. Would the square footage of the balcony we’re planning come further forward?
I really love the beautiful wood panels shown on the railings, though.
Here’s a good video of a tour through an Orthodox Church, talking about architecture & iconography, etc. It’s Jonathan Pageau and Fr Josiah Trenham.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Oi7f35oSkI
Do we have any idea of the total cost of the church at Holy Cross in West Virginia?
Or has Andrew said anything about a cost estimate?
I’m at a professional development seminar on capital fundraising so I’m thinking about our project too…
I asked Andrew that very question while we were walking around the building when I was there, but he wasn’t sure himself, and I wasn’t able to meet with the abbot at all. Andrew guessed 4-5 million.
I’ve talked myself out of worrying about that number too too much, because our building is nowhere near what they are building. Besides it being larger, it’s got a huge bell tower, and full refectory in the basement, and it’s on a hill, and all of their labor and materials are coming from very far away which is really increasing their costs. Not to mention all the money they lost of their first contractor who took off.
Once we get some real plans, we need to take them to builders in the area to get some estimates from them so that we have a target number. I think (hope!) we’re getting close to that point, so I’ve also been thinking/reading and talking to people about capital fundraising. But soon we’ll need to sit down and map it out more specifically.
Alexander lent me his manual “Principles & Techniques of Fundraising” that he got from an “IUPUI”? conference, which is a real page turner! 🙁
Anyway, let’s chat more about this at parish council on Saturday.
Okay, thanks!
Yeah, I’m not worried about the numbers either, just curious. The seminar I’m at is out of the same IUPUI Fund Raising School. They have some formulas and charts to figure out how many donors you need of certain $ amounts to reach a goal. Maybe doesn’t apply perfectly for us, but thinking about it is something to keep my brain alive during the sessions. 🙂
After pestering Andrew last week, I got this reply today:
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Hi Fr. Joshua,
You’re finally at the top of the pile! I’ll plan to send you new drawings before the end of this month. By then I should have gotten through most of the design development and 3D modeling.
Thank you for your patience.
Andrew
When I visited Andrew a couple weeks ago, we emailed afterward and I was able to get the file for the floorplan. It’s probably not the latest iteration, but here it is anyway.
1box=1foot. So the whole footprint is 60×100 (from porch to apse).
For reference, the hall is 50×100.
I’m thinking about maybe setting this up in the parking lot with 2x4s stands as we did before.
Andrew’s building at Holy Cross is coming along, see updates at their facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/holycrosswv
I noticed in the pictures that Andrew is there right now. I texted him and he said he’d be there until Wednesday afternoon. So I’m going to drive down there tomorrow (Tuesday) so that I can be there for Wednesday morning services and after breakfast Andrew will show me around the building. We’ll see what I can learn. And of course the more subtle intention is to get back on his radar. 🙂
Here are a bunch of pictures of the ongoing construction of the church at Holy Cross Hermitage in WV. It’s one of Andrew’s that uses similar construction as he’s planning for us:
https://app.box.com/s/na47kw47f035lw0lhschru8p3ymewpbr
Here are a bunch of pictures of courtyards (or other outsides/facades) I came across during my Holy Land trip that I though might inform our later courtyard design:
https://app.box.com/s/k0wwiifts7i7b7x97sp3976xjk5xxbw5
I’ll gather together a separate collection of pictures that I took that I found had interesting architecture in various ways, but that will take me a little longer.
Is this Comic Sans in mosaic form?? Trippy.
The courtyards are gorgeous, on the whole, but they do make me wonder what an ideal courtyard would look like for Michigan’s climate, i.e., how to create one that wouldn’t just look dead and unwelcoming half the year. I wonder what they do in Russia, etc.
So what I’m hearing is we’ve gotta hustle so we can be the *first* parish in the OCA with a solid stone church? 😉
Yes 🙂
Last point discussed with Andrew on 1/24/2023 – dome configuration.
Some churches dedicated to the Ascension paint the Ascension scene in the dome instead of a Pantocrator. At first glance it’s still basically a Pantocrator (Christ in the middle of the dome blessing). However, as you follow the curves of the dome down, all the figure from the Ascension icon are in between all the windows. So basically a 3D Ascension/Pantocrator. Pretty neat. See attached pictures for examples, or the links below if you want to VR yourself around some of those churches.
The reason this matters at this point in the design is because in the usual dome window configuration, there is an East window, which offsets the whole lower window scene pushing the central figure, the Theotokos, off-center. (see picture). Andrew’s idea was to turn the windows so that the east wall of the dome is *not* a window, but rather a space between the windows, where you’d paint the Theotokos, thus centering the whole thing.
This seems like a fine idea because, even if we opted out of this idea in our iconography later, the windows are all still perfectly symmetric/normal.
https://www.blagofund.org/Archives/Pec/Demetrios/VR/
https://www.blagofund.org/Archives/Pec/Apostles/VR/
I love the Ascension dome idea!
I’m open to pretty much anything for the exterior, though I’ll chime in in agreement with Andrew that I’d like to avoid fake exposed timber rafters.
This type really makes sense given our our patronal feast.
Notes from meeting with Andrew Gould on 1/24/2023:
(thanks to building design secretary, Anastasia Farison!)
Stone cladding vs timber vs stucco—materials, aesthetic, etc
Stone type not exactly yet determined. We’ll have different options from the quarry. Particulars still need to be researched. The stone that Andrew drew is just a fill-in.
We can still do half stone and half stucco if it comes to that. It’s half our aesthetic decision, half a cost decision. If we decided to stucco the top portions, dome, etc, it could save us some money. It’s something that can be on the table in the future if we run out of money or if we want to do all or only some stone cladding.
Many old Michigan buildings are partially stone and partially brick. Andrew showed us some beautiful old Michigan buildings where the main portion of the wall is stone and all the edges and lintels are fun brick patterns. Also the arches and finer work are much easier to accomplish in brick if the stone is large and rough.
What is the roof material/color?
No decision there. It’s just a fill-in—we need to decide that kind of thing.
Roof overhang? Exposed timber rafters?
“Impossible to do that in a way that is structurally authentic.” We won’t *have* rafters that will naturally stick through the walls to create overhang, like an old building (which would have poor insulation). In our area we’re going to need a significant amount of insulation in the roof, which thickens it to the point where the rafter is much lower than the roof overhang. This means that while he *could* do it, any kind of overhang/rafter would be structurally fake, complicate things considerably, and compromise the integrity of the insulation.
We can gutter it or not. Those can be quite inconvenient—get clogged with leaves, overflow, etc. Can just put a gravel ‘gutter’ around the perimeter for water to fall on. (such as at Dormition Monastery)
Much overhang not necessary on an all-stone building, and not usual on Orthodox Churches, except for Romanian, because they like icons on their outside walls.
(However, if some of the building ends up being stucco, then we might want to revisit this overhang question…)
Handicap ramps?
Hasn’t thought through site planning things, where it will fit best on our land. This drawing wasn’t meant to depict that yet, and he hasn’t forgotten.
More windows? In that balcony area? Altar window?
Yes, in the 3 east apses there is a window in each one, wasn’t visible in that rendering.
There will be quite a lot of light through the dome and the big apse windows, so Andrew thinks we won’t particularly need more windows further back (which would presumably only send more light mostly into the balcony). (He likes the center to be well-lit, and should get darker as you proceed down any transept.)
Transition to Walkway/ possible hall vestibule?
Not his radar yet. Talked about it only generally.
Possible to make it all masonry as well, but certainly not as cheap. We like the timber framing, just asking about transitioning—seems that will probably be a later date problem. Phase 2, if we even get the church built.
A vestibule is a whole new idea to Andrew, he’d like to think about it and see how we can tie it into the walkway.
Front steps
We can widen the steps outside the arch as they come down so they’re not so narrow.
What’s next?
He still has much work to do, mostly we’re waiting on him.
Have civil engineer, consultants lined up, etc. Zoning rules, stormwater rules, utilities…
The township has approved our stuff, Jeannette looked at the rest of it, we’re good all the way up to the point where we actually start pulling permits.
We could probably get Jeannette involved at this point, Andrew can give her the building footprint so she can start looking into more details.
We want official plans so we can get official numbers from a builder and go ahead with fundraising, not just pretty presentation.
We’ve got some more design work to do, very helpful to figure out our stone (what kind, masons, how thick, how big is the stone). We could get a cost estimate for just the stone cladding from a mason— HOW much extra money for all stone vs. half stone, etc.
Andrew promises to keep working on ours, along with a couple other churches.
Cool new idea:
Should we turn the dome windows 22.5 degrees in order to have an “Ascension Pantocrator”??? Find out on the next episode! Separate post coming for that…
Sorry for the short notice, but we have a meeting with Andrew at 8pm. Let’s meet at 7:30 to take our own pulse beforehand. Church basement.
Andrew has been working on our design this week. He sent us a rendering of the exterior for comments. He wrote me the following:
I’ve attached the drawing.
I love it!! The different levels, the outdoor enclosed space, that it is 100% clearly an Orthodox Church…all of it! What material will the roof be to be that color?
That use of stone is beautiful (and I enjoy his description of the Michigan inspiration). Would it look a lot like the monastery’s church exterior?
The porch is different than I’ve been envisioning–a little more enclosed, and less use of timber than I think has been on some of our concept drawings. I’m not sure I mind that–if anything, I like the extra solidity and emphasized space that this has– but I’d be interested to discuss. My immediate reaction is to want wider steps, especially in front. Another thing I notice is the abrupt transition between porch stone and walkway timber, though I like the variety of all those lovely stone arches and then the sharper angles in the roof and the wood.
I also keep wondering if that’s enough windows in the church as a whole. I assume Andrew knows what he’s doing, but some of them look sparse. Maybe it’s good ambience to have the most light towards the center of the church?
I also expected timber pillars on the porch and more upper windows. I know the light streaming in on the south side will be beautiful, and in some ways more beautiful with fewer windows, but we are used to a bright sanctuary, and I would like to see more upper windows in the nave.
That said, I really like this.
I really like it. Any handicap ramps though?
If anyone has any more questions or comments on this, send them today. I’ll compile them and send them all to Andrew later tonight.
I also thought there would be more wood on the front of the church, and is the entire building cladded in stone? It seems like a lot. Maybe more wood would help balance it out. Either that or more than one texture on the building.
I love it! I like the idea of a little more wood but I also think that the stone is going to provide a lot of wonderful texture not just because it’s stone but also because of the different sizes of the blocks. Is this the color of stone proposed? There will probably be some color variations?
I am trying to summarize our thinking to Andrew about having more timber on the porch, but I’m not sure I know what I’m asking for …
When I talked with him earlier this year, I gave him some of the more recent renderings we had done, and all of them had solid stone porches. The last time we tossed around an all-timber porch was several iterations ago before Andrew got on board. So he gave us what we asked for. :-/
It’s only now when I look at his building that I’m becoming conscious of what some of you mentioned … so I’m trying to figure out why our rendering made the transition from stone to timber less stark than his seems to be ….
Hmmm …
I think it must be because we put all those curved timber things sticking out from all sides under a large roof overhang. Whereas his roof hardly has any overhang at all.
In our design, the building was mostly stone, but had hints of timber peeking out all over, so it appeared to me as a “stone-and-timber” church, whereas his is pure uninterrupted stone.
So maybe that’s why ours blended into a timber walkway more seamlessly?
Is that what’s going on?
I really do love the stone, but maybe he overdid it on the stone?
The other area where it seems over-stoned to me is that it goes all the way up to the dome. When I saw that I thought, wow, that’s going to be too heavy for those columns, and that’s when I noticed the buttresses. So I’m guessing those inside columns have grown in size?
I’m thinking …. could the top part of the church (the tower part leading to the dome) maybe be stucco or timber or something?
I’m just thinking out loud here. It feels like we need a meeting to do some communal out-loud thinking.. Tomorrow? 8pm?
But please reply now if you have any helpful thoughts. I want to send him some sort of reply to make sure he stays our our project and doesn’t get distracted!! :-)}
I pestered Andrew last week with an email, since he said he’d be back to us in November. He replied today with this:
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Hi Fr. Joshua,
I’m nearly done wrapping up the ongoing projects I mentioned. I’m done with the big church in Portland for now, and another I was working on in Utah has been put on long-term hold. So I should have a lot of undivided time to attend to your project after Christmas. (I will probably get back on yours before Christmas, but don’t want to promise anything just yet).
Thanks again for your patience! I do apologize for the long wait.
Andrew
Here’s a new interview with Andrew Gould. Sounds like he’s gotten even better at talking about this stuff
https://www.instituteofsacredarts.com/luminous/2022/11/30/andrew-gould-building-beauty
Glory to Jesus Christ!
This post is about the hall remodel, rather than church design, but the topic is more appropriate to this group of people, so I’m posting it in the church design blog.
Since we’re delayed on the building design, maybe we could do some group thinking about part of the hall design.
First load the new floor plan into your memory:
https://uofi.app.box.com/s/cz7bam1x63d5yeo02vfgohtmynxz68b5
The large main room and kitchen are not in the current scope, but everything else inside is. I’m thinking that the bathrooms and the office and classroom can be pretty generic/utilitarian, ie, same ceiling, lights, tiles on the walls in the bathroom walls but otherwise standard sheetrock walls, etc. I haven’t been giving those areas too much thought. But if anyone wants to weigh in those things feel free.
(Actually, Luke and I are pretty excited that we’ve designed a pretty pipe-clog-proof and super low maintenance bathroom setup! He said something like, “it’s one thing to put in bathroom pipes for someone else, but it’s quite another when you know you’ll probably be the maintenance guy for those bathrooms for the rest of your life.”)
But concerning the rest of the remodel I think some groupthink would be good. We’ve talked a lot about entry way spaces and transitions, and also about what makes a room work as far as design and flow. So put on your Christopher Alexander pattern-language thinking caps and look at the “entry area” and the “reception area”/”bookstore/library”.
What I have had in mind is something like the monastery’s reception room (but not as over-the-top-fancy). A comfortable living-room kind of area, sofas, coffee table, lamps? A large window. A rug? a coffee pot? Pictures on the wall. Flexible enough to host an Adult Ed or be a Sunday school space, and somehow also formal enough to be welcoming to visitors and inviting to someone wanting to peruse for books, icons, etc.
And likewise the “entry area”. It’s kind of a mud-room so mostly a practical passage to the other places, but how could we make it be a welcoming transition space? Is it even enough of a space? (should we consider even adding a 10×10 room right outside the main double doors, as a transition to the walkway between the buildings?) Should the door from the entry area to the hall be larger? What kind of doors? half glass, all glass? Should there be doors at all at every each place where I put one on the plan? Or just walk-through?
What should we do with the walls and ceiling in these spaces? Colors? Textures? Wood? suspended or sheetrock ceiling? Or at least what should we avoid? Some sort of pinterest theme connecting these spaces together? 🙂 Also, the ceilings are 10′ everywhere, which seems excessive to me for spaces like these, so I was going to bring them down to 9′ or so. (saves heat/AC too.) All the floors in the remodeled area are getting the same concrete coating, but we could do something classier over the top of that in certain areas if we want to.
The walls around the bathrooms are set in stone, but the rest of them haven’t been placed yet, so there’s still (a little) time to adjust those things. I’d love to hear your thoughts, either here or in person. If there’s enough interest I’d be glad to host a meeting. (Otherwise you’ll all be stuck with my personal aesthetic design choices for years to come! Mu-ha-ha-ha…..)
Attached to this post are some pictures that show the finalized drawings of a church Andrew is doing for a Greek church in Oregon. You might remember seeing some of these because he showed earlier versions of them to us at our meeting with him this summer. It’s relevant to us because many elements of this church are what we’ve asked him for: the central square layout, the middle pillars/pendentives/dome, the four central arches, the wood ceiling on the transepts, etc, Obviously ours is much smaller, and cruciform instead of basilica, etc. But it works to get a sense of what we hope to be looking at . . . some day …. :-/
Here’s what he wrote about this church:
Here’s my latest church design – for Saint John the Baptist Greek Orthodox Church near Portland, OR. This design provides room for 400 worshippers, some seated, some standing.
It was important to the parish that the church look recognizably Greek Orthodox, while also expressing the prevalence of timber construction in the Pacific Northwest. My design combines a timber-roofed basilica with a great Byzantine dome – a hybrid that never existed historically, but which some modern churches attempt. I worked hard to make this combination look graceful and inevitable – a worthy American contribution to the tradition.
It’s looking good! Glad he’s going to be able to use this to help with the Holy Ascension project too.
Finally got an email response from Andrew, here it is:
Hi Fr. Joshua,
Sorry I haven’t had much to report lately. Here’s what’s going on.
At Holy Cross Monastery in West Virginia, after a year of delays and switching contractors, construction is suddenly plowing ahead. And the monks have requested some significant changes to the building while it’s under construction. So I’ve had to scramble to keep on top of it, and get them updated and completed drawings. It’s a massive and complicated construction site, with no one locally in charge, so it’s been consuming a lot of my time. I attached some photos.
Meanwhile, a year ago I promised to provide design renderings for St. John the Baptist Greek Orthodox Church in Portland, Oregon. They just recently informed me that they have to have those for a 25th-anniversary celebration with their bishop at the end of next week. So I’ve been scrambling to design this massive church for that deadline. Attached a screenshot of that also.
Meanwhile, St. Maximus Church in Denton, TX, which I conceptually designed several years ago, and which has been held up in land-use permit issues all this time, has suddenly been approved by the city to move forward. The approvals are time-limited, so there is huge pressure on me to complete the design and hand over the drawings to the local architect of record. So that’s going to consume all of next month.
Hopefully I can resume your project in November. I would much prefer to be working on your project, because I’m quite excited about that design. But I’m already working 10-hour days 6 days a week, and there’s only so much I can do.
The good news is that I’m working on standardizing my details and specifications for all these churches. My work on Holy Cross Monastery largely consists of detailed research and design specifications related to windows, doors, timber details, plasters, flooring, etc., all of which is work that I won’t have to do again on subsequent churches. Having actually built one of these masonry-and-timber-frame churches, I’ll have figured out how to do every detail already. So in that sense, I am working on your project, along with all the others, in parallel.
Andrew
This article on beautiful gardens seems relevant to our endeavors:
https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/?m=1#.YvKUcyX3aEd
Update from building design meeting on 8/2.
Andrew sent me some drawings today, mostly the same as what we saw at the meeting with a few small updates. He put in the staircase, and elongated the west part of the nave slightly, and I’m not sure what else.
It’s here:
https://uofi.box.com/s/zn7czytv0446fq20mxf0fbzyt99s69t9
Anastasia took notes from the meeting, here they are:
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4 foot round columns, circular Byzantine style (probably plastered, with icons)
Nice large transition b/tw timber roofing and plastered pendentives/dome
Equal in 4 directions—relatively short timber stretches w/out needing trusses (thus less expensive and breaking up the space less). (update from fr Joshua: he has since made the back (west) part of the nave slightly longer than the other three directions, see pic.)
Current balcony is 250 sq ft. That footage would be very small proportionally for a new balcony—probably at least slightly bigger.
Horseshoe shape? We like it.
Fire codes want 2 staircases, if accommodating 50+ people or larger than 250 sq ft anyway. We can claim there will be pews (taking up space and therefore fewer people), fudge the code numbers, etc. If open plan then we really need 2 staircases.
Thinking about having one nice one instead, and then a fire escape style one on the outside. Make the staircase a beautiful object itself, maybe wooden balcony. Brought up the idea we previously talked about: a staircase that turns, with a platform also looking out over the church. Andrew willing to work on that.
Talked about deacon’s path through choir. Where to put choir for that to make sense. More of a behavior pattern than an architectural problem, which we probably just need to decide when we’re in the space.
Talked about altar space: how to use. Father asks if a way to put a proskemedia nook in the wall, keeping the two sides for sacristies; second preference is proskemedia in left apse; least desirable is a second table in the altar space. We definitely want to be able to access sacristies WITHOUT being in the altar, so they’re practical storage spaces available to anyone. Plenty of space as is, which Andrew was particular about asking.
We like a window in the central altar apse. Shouldn’t mess with the iconography: plenty of room for platitera above, appropriate iconography to either side.
Narthex:
We like the nesting of a soft narthex. But we need junk space, coat closet (bc of traffic—can’t go all the way to trapeza to hang up coats).
Discussing bathrooms again. Maybe one single bathroom?
Bathroom at one end (has to be north side for plumbing), coat and utility closets at other. We want a lot of glass in the center of the narthex/nave wall : look like nice paned wooden doors. Two in the center to open and function as doors, two on each side fixed (as windows). Solid walls on the sides of the narthex, around closets etc.
Acoustics: no curves, but lots of reflective surfaces in different materials, so should still be very nice acoustics. Much more ‘live’ than we have now.
Dome options: More Russian (helmet dome, not super duper twisting onion); Greek dome (just round dome and a cross). We’re not too preferential either way: on our size dome, both look nice without going too far Russian or Greek.
Ductwork: Andrew likes to put it under the floor. There’s not really another option for us, without attic space. He wants to know if we really need forced air? Can we just do it with radiators and radiant heat? With thicker walls and a naturally cooler church, we may be able to manage with just dehumidifiers, but we reeeeallly don’t want to bank on it. We think we’d install ducts either way, just so we have them if we need.
Andrew doesn’t like radiant heating. Looking at 50 years til you have to tear up your floor for maintenance, but not for a church you want to keep for 300 years. So it would be forced air through the floor and hot water radiators above the floor. Luke saying radiant heat is much more efficient. Lots of details I didn’t get. We still need ducts. (note from Fr. Joshua, I think radiant heating is good, not sure why Andrew thinks the pipes will need to be ripped out alter. needs research.)
Three options: a crawl space; ducts buried in the dirt below the slab (modern way usually); utility troughs (concrete troughs in the floor with lids and ducts laid in them).
Thinking we’d like the crawl space to get in there and maintenance things ourselves. Maybe an annoying amount of work, but possible.
Does the crawl space have to be above grade or not? We’re comfortable having it drop below grade: we’re on top of a hill, it’s very sandy, and we can have a sump for water if it somehow turns out to be an issue. Crawl spaces here are often 54” deep bc they’re already going that deep with the footers (against frost), or might as well go 8” with a full basement under part of it. Half basement maybe?
Structure on top of basement? Wood framing, steel/concrete slab (especially if we’re thinking of a stone/tile floor—are we?). If we want a wood floor we can just do a wood structure and sub-floor. Andrew tells us not to assume one is cheaper. Argument for steel/tile is that it’s pretty great to have a non-flammable floor, especially in an Orthodox church.
Mechanical room in crawl space? We think yes. How to enter crawl space? A cellar door type thing from the exterior for access, maybe also a small access from the inside. We don’t want to take up space on the inside with a whole stair down to the basement.
Structural materials:
Outside: concrete block stuccoed over. We’re interested in stone cladding (not just the 1” stone veneer), which would make the walls significantly thicker. We’re feeling in favor of stone, huge thick walls are fine. Maybe 5-6” stone, layer of foam, 8” concrete block. Andrew tells us we’re not totally crazy. Also wondering about part stone/part stucco options, maybe just stone on bottom half. Andrew’s going to think about that and possibly mock up some images.
Outside:
We need a topographical survey for the land. Andrew strongly suggests finding a civil engineer to get us started on the requirements from the county/ etc.
Andrew wants to know if we need to have steps up to the church. In our previous discussions we liked the sense of transition from the outside to the inside sacred space, but Andrew suggests just berming up the land around the church at a slight slope (this is what he usually does), so that it is still a higher point and a slight transition, but still handicapped friendly and not raising the church itself by a couple steps.
Finally:
Andrew wants to know what the next goal is. Pretty renderings for fundraising? A hearty yes, but— He thinks if we want it to run smoothly, we should be getting in contact with contractors and engineers and have them at the ready, or else it might be a significant delay to actually get things moving. To do that would have its own costs, but they could weigh in on meetings with lots of good advice, especially with how to do things in our area.
We at least want to pause for a little bit after getting renderings, because we need to see if we get *any* money and start getting off the ground.
Thank you for the update, sounds great! A little concerned about the ductwork…it would be nice to have appropriate temperatures inside. I was reminded how not great it is to need fans to cool it down, both when the AC went out and when we visited the Saunders with their very loud wall unit, it’s impossible to hear anything not sung. Because we are regularly packed, it feels extra important to me, but also maybe even more so being a woman with the potential of being pregnant in the summer again haha.
Thank you for the update, sounds great! A little concerned on the duct work…I was reminded how much of a bummer it is to need fans when the AC went out and when we visited the Saunders with their very loud wall unit. Makes it nearly impossible to hear anything not sung. It would be nice to continue to have a way to fully regulate temperature without a lot of noise. We are regularly packed that even with more space it would be difficult to make it comfortable enough. And I don’t think I’m just saying that as a woman with the potential of being pregnant in the summer again haha.
We have a meeting with Andrew tomorrow (Tuesday) at 7pm, we’ll meet at the church.
He says he has some “general drawings”, just trying to make sure we’re ok with the direction he’s going before he continues. So I’m not sure what to expect exactly.
Sounds good.
Stumbled across this very beautiful little stone church (in France): https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2010/02/russian-iconographer-fr-gregory-krug.html
Thought it was worth noting since stone Orthodox churches are relatively rare.
Another photo.
Yes, please!
Here is Andrew’s latest design for a parish in Orlando, Florida.
https://newworldbyzantine.com/sacred/saint-stephen-the-protomartyr-longwood-fl/
I like it, but it does make me realize that I’m quite committed to our layout with the balcony overhanging the back section of the main floor, variety in ceiling heights, and the inset space created by the transept. This Florida design feels like one big square/rectangle, without differentiation in the space apart from the pillars.
I did note that, though they’ve chosen to put bathrooms in the church, they’re separated from the narthex by an additional hallway. I appreciate that both on a “holiness gradient” level in approaching the nave, and because it keeps the sounds of flushing toilets and running water farther from the nave.
P.S. Father, it’s saying this link to our 3D model of the building is invalid: https://app.modelo.io/share-token/1499215744921305088?source=copylink Do you have an updated link?
> This Florida design feels like one big square/rectangle, without differentiation
> in the space apart from the pillars.
That’s apparently what they wanted. But we talked about it and he knows we do NOT want that. :-).
Although I do like pillars large enough that you can paint icons on them, as well as, as you mentioned, bathrooms that aren’t too near the narthex doors.
> it’s saying this link to our 3D model of the building is invalid: …
That site was not free, there was a non-negligible monthly fee, and since we had sorta paused design discussion I suspended my account there. But if Andrew gives us 3D models to check out then I can activate it again and put them there. Or I might look around to see if there is something more affordable or free that offers the same service.
> Did he say how much time on average he’s been booking on other projects?
> Might the $200/hr rate end up being a better deal than a flat $25k fee?
I only got a vague answer on that, it was something like, “well it depends on how much we have to go back and forth”.
But we talked about it and he knows we do NOT want that. :-).
Good to know. 🙂
Got it on the website.
Hmm, okay. I guess it encourages us to be clear and concise in our communications.
Glory to Jesus Christ!
I chatted with Andrew about the work. We didn’t talk much about the exterior or site plan, his idea is to start on the inside and let that inform the rest of the design. He is working up some ideas and will let me know when he’s ready to present them to us, which sounds like it will take the form of a zoom meeting.
He showed me some pictures of another church he’s working on:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/cyf2gf8dsjsrqc7/AABT7FpDRs9miu11-0oXckDYa?dl=0
That one is much bigger than what we want, but it seems to share the basic idea of what we’re after: a dome, 4 main columns holding it up, and timbers holding up the roof in all 4 directions. We’d subtract the long row of columns on the west side though and make it only 1 (or few) arches in that direction. (and not butt those round/square columns up together like he did, and of course not have such a huge iconostas, etc.) At any rate, he’s taking that as a starting point.
I’ll also include the contract-proposal he sent below. It’s changed a bit since we spoke about it before. At the time it was a 25K flat fee, but now it’s hourly at $200 per hour. He says he gets burned by flat fees because then parishes ask for time-consuming plan changes ad infinitum. That makes sense and I can appreciate having some incentive to make decisions and stick with them, but it also makes me a bit nervous since I don’t know how that hourly fee is going to extrapolate with reasonable design requests. And the other part of it that still gives me a little pause is the “intellectual property” section since it’s so vague and could really mean anything.
—————
Proposal:
Dear Father Joshua,
I have considered the work necessary to proceed with development of a design for your new church, and to provide presentation renderings. I am prepared to offer the following proposal for conceptual design services.
Scope of Services:
Fee Schedule:
Disclaimer:
Intellectual Property:
SIGNATURES
…
I think it’s not too crazy. Looks like it sets expectations for the project without being too heavy handed handed one way or another.
Just now seeing this post, but I agree. It seems the intellectual property section is mostly there to protect his “brand,” so people don’t go rogue with his designs and he ends up with his name attached to low quality results.
Do we have anyone with legal expertise who could take a look at it, though, and see if there are potential traps?
Did he say how much time on average he’s been booking on other projects? Might the $200/hr rate end up being a better deal than a flat $25k fee?
Christ is risen!
Some news:
1) Andrew says he’s ready to start working with us in the week of June 6th. I’m not sure about details on how this process will work yet, so stay tuned.
2) As we’ve talked about, it hasn’t seemed right to publish widely any kind of “official” building campaign yet, since we’re still lacking a concrete design, and it’s hard to get buy-in on vague future ideas. But I’d actually like to do something in that direction because some of us will have some opportunities in the very near future to get this in front of sympathetic eyes, so we need something short-term that’s less vague and more vision-setting. (?). Also there’s now some real hope of having a design in a couple months anyway, since we have a starting date from Andrew.
To that end I started a page on the website for this:
https://orthodoxchurchalbion.org/building
We talked about all of this a lot at parish council last weekend. I started it up, but most of the text there is from Katie, as she organized and rewrote it using her expertise in this area. Gabriel and Colm are working on some rough rendering ideas, I have Gabriel’s in there now. I dug around for good pictures from the parish for the various sections, but I’m not satisfied with the selection, so Brooke is looking through her collection for more. And for some things I had to just make reasonable guesses. Basically it’s supposed to show that this is a real thing with real work happening on it in order to inspire some confidence and generosity, even though the airplane hasn’t technically left the ground yet. It will be a page in progress for a long time, so jump in if you have helpful comments/corrections/etc.
I’m also going to try to come up with some sort of poster-board thing that corresponds to and points to that page, with pictures and basic info, etc., which we can put on the basement wall. I’d be glad for anyone to take it and make it better – this is for-sure not my area of expertise. It won’t have a thermometer though! 🙂 It seemed to us at the parish council that it’s not helpful to have such a thing until there’s something in it, not to mention we don’t really know how tall to make it either. <shrug>
Pictures from Napoleon stone quarry:
https://uofi.box.com/s/g9ol7o96r24yzhrjn11ior4zqlb8px8i
It was a rather interesting visit. I was thinking stone was going to be super expensive, but it wasn’t so bad. When I talked to Andrew about using stone, he was saying we should use the “real” stuff: horizontal stones of some depth to make a full-width stone wall. Not, in contrast, the stones cut thinner and placed on vertically as a veneer (such as at the monastery church).
Until today I figured that using whole stones would be the more expensive option since there’s so much more mass involved. Turns out, it’s the *cheaper* option, because much less labor is need in their creation. Woohoo!
Cool! Good news on the whole stone.
Peter and I are leaving at 10am tomorrow instead of 3pm.
Christ is risen!
https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2022/04/what-christopher-alexander-saw
While we were on our trip, we stopped by Holy Ascension in Charleston NC, and attended Holy Trinity (Greek), the closest parish to where we were staying in St. Augustine. It was an interesting comparison. Holy Ascension was beautiful, but too narrow, and the pillars and nooks/alcoves created some traffic problems. Some of this was due to the nave just being too small for the number of parishioners, but the other aspect was that there were icons with candle stands on at least one side of each pillar, and there was not enough space for veneration without moving people moving out of the way. The size of the pillars was such that if you are tucked away in the corner, you could see most of the people in the nave, but not the altar.
In contrast, Holy Trinity was more of a square layout, and the nave was about as wide as it was deep. This made the nave more shallow, which also meant that more of the fellow parishioners were out of peripheral vision. It clicked for me that the long narrow basilica style nave we have now contributes to the visual noise significantly as you go further back towards the narthex because it pushes more activity into your field of view. Perhaps widening, and spreading people out, will bring everyone closer to the altar both physically, but also with the senses.
Anyway, previously I did not really like the square or wide layout, but after experiencing both (extremes), I think I prefer the wide layout because it spreads people out to the sides rather then forward.