Mount Home Baptist Church

Morganton, N.C.

NEW SANCTUARY
- 1,076 seat Sanctuary (104 in the Choir, 250 in the Balcony)
- Complete Audio/Video/Lighting Production and Recording Systems
- Choir Practice Room
- Classrooms and Conference Room
- Elevator

The sanctuary has a fan-shaped seating arrangement and a balcony.  The balcony stairs provide access from the vestibule and from within the worship space so that people can come down to the platform without leaving the worship space.  The building includes a choir practice room sized and oriented the same as the choir loft.  Special attention also went into the room acoustics of the sanctuary and choir room.  Full audio/video/lighting technology is incorporated into the project for services, production, and recording.

The design resolves a number of previous problems, such as an area of the church referred to as “the bottleneck.”  This tight corridor area was redesigned and a number of stairs and landings removed.  The resulting rear lobby is an attractive gathering space and is large enough for the Sunday morning traffic to the sanctuary.

Even before starting any drawings, we worked through a number of difficult site challenges.  We assisted with evaluating site options, septic systems, watershed restrictions, asbestos removal, parking, HVAC systems, and existing facilities.  Another difficult issue was the decision to tear down the existing sanctuary in order to build a new sanctuary.  In recognition of the historical and sentimental significance of the old sanctuary, the original stained glass windows were restored and reused as new windows, light boxes and baptistry doors.

Project Size: 25,000 sq.ft.-----