LifeAustin Amphitheatre, Austin, Texas; image: GFF, Dallas
The city of Austin, Texas, is a pioneer of environmental sustainability and stewardship. In 1991, Austin Energy Green Building (AEGB), a city department devoted to cultivating innovation in building to promote community economic, environmental, and human well-being, developed a first-ever rating system in the United States.
Austin is home to LifeAustin Church, a ministry dedicated to providing community outdoor space while fostering environmental sustainability and preservation in design.
The rating system is used to evaluate building sustainability, and its mission and successes in the local community of Austin have inspired other U.S. cities to follow suit over the years. On the city's website, www.austinenergy.com, representatives for the department state its goal as working "with the public and building professionals to guide and build green projects that contribute positively to the city’s environmental goals and make Austin a more sustainable place to live for generations to come."
Not surprisingly given the city's stated mission, Austin is home to LifeAustin Church, a ministry dedicated to providing community outdoor space while fostering environmental sustainability and preservation in design. The project was first profiled in Church.Design in 2017.
Image: LifeAustin Church, GFF
Concerted efforts between designers and the church resulted in attention to proper drainage, removal of as few trees as possible, and thoughtful routing of utilities on the rocky terrain.
Since Austin dubs itself the Live Music Capitol of the World, LifeAustin fits into the city's fabric by being a church that focuses heavily on live music for worship. In the mid 2000's, LifeAustin opened an amphitheater on the church's grounds, designed by Dallas-based GFF Architects. Featuring 1,000 covered seats and another 500 on the lawn, as well as an outdoor concourse area for smaller gatherings, the amphitheater was designed to accommodate LifeAustin events and to welcome events hosted by community organizations.
Abating sound pollution
Since LifeAustin is adjacent to residential neighborhoods, GFF worked alongside theatre, acoustical, and audiovisual design firm Idibri, also based in Dallas, to develop a solution that allowed for monitoring of the sound levels within the amphitheater and at the property line. The innovative solution ensures that if the sound exceeds a certain level, an alert is sent to the engineers at front-of-house.
The stage itself is also oriented so that it isn’t facing any residential areas head-on. "The amphitheater is positioned on the site [so] that the direction where most of the sound will be traveling goes back toward the church’s own property,” explains Ben Boeshans, CTS-D at Idibri.
[An] innovative solution ensures that if the sound exceeds a certain level, an alert is sent to the engineers at front-of-house.
The firm also provided a number of other specifications to isolate sound: the facility’s side walls extend up higher than normal to help block sound that would otherwise spill out toward the neighbors, and a number of treatments were applied to absorb sound. “We put an extensive amount of acoustic treatment both in the stage house—on the walls and the ceiling—and out in the seating, and there are panels on the roof of the shed as well, just to deaden the sound.” Boeshans adds that this enables high impact sound in the amphitheater itself without unreasonable spillover. “It was all about containing it while not ruining the experience.”
Environmental preservation
The siting of the building produced several challenges related to environmental preservation (the church and the design team wanted to remove as few trees as possible); the routing of utilities (the rocky ground underneath the facility made digging difficult); and drainage. “First of all, we had to understand how the water drained naturally—we couldn’t put an amphitheater there, and then have all the water draining into it, in front of the stage,” notes Stephen Pickard, principal at GFF.
Drains behind the covered seating area are designed to capture some of the water flow, and the site’s grading is constructed to divert it. In addition, there is a pipe running along the front of the stage that prevents the amphitheater from flooding. “It was a combination of redesigning how water would be routed, and then [providing] collection points where we could collect water and then redistribute it,” Pickard adds.
Community + outward-facing mission
Aside from the amphitheatre, LifeAustin’s campus features amenities that not only church members can experience and enjoy. The church's Frisbee golf course, dog park, and walking trails are among the types of offerings that have become increasingly prevalent over the years among churches looking to foster and nourish community outreach and engagement.
[Editor's note: This piece was originally published in 2020.]
Find more on AEGB and its initiatives here: https://austinenergy.com/ae/energy-efficiency/green-building/
