Lakewood Church

Jared Wood, of Houston-based architectural firm, Studio Red, had to come up with a solution for the ceiling in the sanctuary that would transform it from an arena to a place of worship. As he explains it, “A typical church might have a hard or lay-in ceiling, but this one was so huge and we had to work with the existing structure, so it couldn’t support the normal ceilings. We didn’t have much of a solution at first, other than hanging little bits and pieces of ceiling and playing with their arrangement in certain areas. It wasn’t exciting, and we needed something exciting.”

“We demolished everything that was under the bowl and built classroom spaces for 1,500 children, which required new openings for exiting out of that level that then opened up the question of blocking sound between classrooms and the sanctuary above. So, we built a separation ceiling below the bowl to separate the classrooms from the sanctuary. Then we built mezzanines above the classrooms and below the bowl for mechanical and electrical and so on.

Enviro-Grid was installed in over 400,000 square feet of acoustical ceilings in the high lobbies throughout the facility. We are proud to have been included in this project. The design on these studios is the best we have ever seen. The acoustics involved in making a former sport arena into a sanctuary was a job in itself. By working off the catwalks, we were able to hang 15,000 square feet of black acoustical lapidary banners with a plastic, perforated wrap around them to absorb sound 110 feet up. The placement of acoustical wall panels handled the classic arena echo-chamber
into effect.

For additional information visit
studioredarchitects.com