Rock of Roseville
Roseville, CA


Seat Count: 500
Project Type: Renovation
Opening: 2007
Architect: HGA, Sacramento
AD Scope: Acoustics, Audio, Video


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Rock of Roseville is a very interactive church. The church is currently using a system that can tabulate responses to questions on the video screen. If the pastor asks three to four questions during the sermon, a worshipper can press a, b, c, or d and provide the answer. The church uses this to creates instantaneous feedback about what is really happening in people’s lives. For example, if the pastor addresses the issue of abuse, he can ask if members of the congregation have been abused in their life. People respond anonymously, but the pastor can immediately see the percentage of people who have that experience. The idea is to break down the “always great on Sunday morning” pressures.

In addition to the tabulation system, the room itself needed to support communication between the platform and seating areas

To support this, a wrap-around seating plan was developed to give a strong sense of connection in the room. However, there was an acoustical challenge to doing this in a way that would not create sound focusing which would normally result if the wall shaping followed the seatiang plan. The wall shaping is generally rectangular, which allowed for a simple and inexpensive building structure, while eliminating the acoustics issues of a curved wall. We worked with HGA to develop the wrap around seating plan within the rectangular shape.

There is a second floor located directly above the worship space. In order to maximize available height to accomodate lighting and loudspeakers without compromising sighlines to the video screens, we developed an acoustical solution that works without a ceiling, but with the underside of the 2nd floor structure exposed.

One of the advantages of the 2nd floor spaces above the worship space is that rooftop units could be located directly above the worship space without any resulting noise problems. We worked closely with the mechanical engineers to develop a simple air distribution system without diffusers that allows for a low noise solution to the HVAC systems design at low cost.

The building is sited close to a train line. Sound and light lock vestibules were created at the exterior exits from the stage to ensure adequate isolation from the train.