Mountaintop Community Church
Vestavia Hills, Alabama
Seat Count: 1,700
Project Type: New Construction
Construction Budget: $10 million
Opening: April 2001
Architect: The Garrison Barrett Group
General Contractor: Brice Building Company
A/V/L Installation: ASC Companies
AD Scope: Auditorium Design, Acoustics,
Audio, Video, Lighting
Mountaintop Community offers services that are contemporary and casual, utilizing drama, music, the arts and technology to communicate to the MTV generation.
Because of available budgets and the anticipated cost of site development, the church decided to construct a "gymnatorium" type of building that could be converted to a family life center in the future when a larger worship center was constructed. Because they would be "living" in this space for several years, they wanted to plan something that would be functional as well as cost effective.
The gymnasium shape of the sanctuary has inherent acoustical problems for speech intelligibility. AD worked with the Garrison Barrett Group to design seating, which arranges people in seating tiers so that the members of the congregation become human acoustic elements. This seating layout also serves the purpose of creating a sense of visual community as well.
Technology was another key point to the design. Because of the high performance element of services, AD designed a left-right stereo imaging sound system. The main cluster design concept is similar to that at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville.AD integrated the video screens with the platform so that members of the congregation can easily focus on the screens and the action on the platform without a great deal of head movement.
The lighting systems were designed for IMAG (image magnification) video and the support of the weekly dramas that are a part of the services.
