Drone: SONY, ILCE-7S; image: unsplash.com
Although drones go back decades, church designers and builders have really started using them to help with their jobs over the past 5-10 years.
And the technology related to drones is changing at an exponential rate, allowing today’s drones to fly much faster, have a better battery life, and be much easier to fly.
The power of drones in design and construction
The linkage between propulsion technology and the WiFi and camera optics technology has improved drones considerably. Plus, the ability to zoom in, travel greater distances and heights, and see things much more accurately from those distances is unparalleled—including video footage.
Matt DiBara, founder of DiBara Masonry, a fourth-generation masonry company in Los Angeles, is very familiar with drones, having utilized them multiple times for construction and bidding projects, as well as for troubleshooting projects for other companies to understand what might have gone wrong.
“Drones are helpful for design and construction as they are beneficial to perceive the layout from a higher perspective and get a feel of what things look like from various vantage points,” he says. “For example, while constructing multiple stories, drones can be positioned in a way to show diverse perspectives much more accurately. They also give good spatial awareness, which is crucial for tall buildings.”
“[Drones] are not only helping us understand what exists, but are also helping us to make more informed design decisions.”
Matt DiBara, Founder, DiBara Masonry, Los Angeles, CA
One of the major advantages of using drones in designing churches is that they can help designers gain clarity on the structure’s height and size.
“By flying drones up to certain heights, they can also get insights into what things look like from inside the walls,” DiBara says. “It is also an excellent tool to inspect and understand different existing designs by getting a closer look at them to know how something is constructed, which can be used for inspiration.”
Monastery and Palace Bebenhausen, Tübingen, Germany; image: unsplash.com
Specifically, concerning churches, DiBara Masonry has used drones for restoration projects, including brickwork, stonework, and repointing.
"[The use of drones] helped us get more accurate pricing and identify things without the need for lifts and scaffolding, which is a costly process.”
Matt DiBara, Founder, DiBara Masonry, Los Angeles, CA
“We used drones to map out the different types of cracks within the church and [plan] how we would repair them,” DiBara says. "It helped us get more accurate pricing and identify things without the need for lifts and scaffolding, which is a costly process.”
Drone usage for churches, specifically
Jonathan Peake, a video producer at Constance Free Church in Andover, Minnesota, is licensed to commercially operate unmanned aircraft as a remote pilot, so he has had a lot of experience with drones.
“It’s a really interesting perspective and there are a lot of things you can do with drones—from photography to cinematography to photogrammetry (the art and science of extracting 3D information from hundreds of photographs),” he says. “It’s pretty awe-inspiring.”
When he was little, people would have photos taken from airplanes of their acreage, and they had those type of photos showing Constance Free Church’s campus when he first came onboard, hung in the church library.
"From a video standpoint, we have a pre-service video featuring our church building, just a little extra something for people to look at; it’s like a blimp video looking down at a football game.”
Jonathan Peake, Video Producer, Licensed Commercial Drone Pilot, Constance Free Church, Andover, MN
He notes that aerial photography today, by drones, can do things like see how snowplows can push snow, or [can facilitate] inspections of roofs.
“From a video standpoint, we have a pre-service video featuring our church building, just a little extra something for people to look at; it’s like a blimp video looking down at a football game,” Peake says.
Construction companies can utilize drones, he notes, by having different angles of the site mapped out every day to gauge progress.
“From a utility standpoint, if you’re building a flat roof, it’s a lot easier to send a drone up and hover over the building and have the inspector look at the photos,” Peake says. “That’s safer than sending up [people] to a roof that could be slippery.”
Photogrammetry and future church design
And thanks to automated flight, photogrammetry can offer a 3D digital model of a building with minimal effort, since the drones can get up to 40 feet from the building and orbit around it. That makes building the 3D model easier than ever before.
“I do see this as being an emerging opportunity if a church building needs to be renovated,” Peake says. “Our building will be expanded in the next 5-10 years, and I think with being able to monitor the progress with the drones, and show that to the people donating and the congregations, is cool and takes them along for the ride.”
“For people looking into [drone] technology, they should be looking at the best automated flight options that they can have, and the highest resolution photographs they can get.”
Jonathan Peake, Video Producer, Licensed Commercial Drone Pilot, Constance Free Church, Andover, MN
Plus, it’s going to help the architect know what can be done and designed without having to rely strictly on blueprints and schematics.
“For people looking into this technology, they should be looking at the best automated flight options that they can have, and the highest resolution photographs they can get,” Peake says.
Image: unsplash.com
The most significant barrier to drones gaining more prominence is the knowledge gap. It’s an innovative technology, and like any other innovation, some early adopters jump on it, and then there is the mass market, which can be harder to reach and also requires greater awareness.
Still, DiBara believes that more and more building and design companies will get on board the drone craze in the near future.
“They are not only helping us understand what exists, but are also helping us to make more informed design decisions,” he says. “We could not map layout and design decisions the same way we [can] with drones, so they are an important component of the process.”
