First Lutheran Church, Fargo, ND, image by Jill Ockhardt Blaufuss
Built in 1917, First Lutheran Church in Fargo, North Dakota, has undergone several expansions. In 2017, a growing parish, combined with the need to modernize its facilities, drove the church to launch another expansion project involving its education spaces, as well as the construction of The Celebration Center, a 706-seat auditorium. Local architectural and construction firm Wild I CRG oversaw design and construction, with Walters-Storyk Design Group (WSDG), a global architectural acoustical consulting and audiovisual engineering firm headquartered in Highland, New York, leading acoustic and AV design. Tricorne Audio Inc., an AV design and integration company with offices in Fargo and Bismarck, North Dakota, also contributed to AV design, as well as handling AV systems deployment.
Wide open emphasis
Daniel Damico, administrator at First Lutheran Church, explains that while The Celebration Center’s primary purpose is to accommodate both traditional and contemporary worship, the design goal went beyond that. “The idea was not to limit the space,” he says. “Even though this would be used as a worship space, we also wanted it to be a space that could be utilized by the community.” As a result, the auditorium was also designed with talks, lectures, concerts, and theatrical productions in mind.
“The idea was not to limit the space. Even though this would be used as a worship space, we also wanted it to be a space that could be utilized by the community.”
Daniel Damico, Administrator, First Lutheran Church, Fargo, ND
Wild I CRG has worked with First Lutheran since the 1990s, when the firm handled the design and construction of an educational and office space expansion. It was around this time that the church first began discussing the need for a facility that could support contemporary worship, as well. Wild I CRG began master planning for The Celebration Center back then, and as the project gained momentum, the need for advanced acoustical expertise presented itself.
“WSDG consulted with us on how we could separate the new contemporary worship space from an old sanctuary that’s 20 feet away, and a very large fellowship hall that’s 20 feet away on the other side and that wasn’t necessarily meant to be acoustically separated from anything,” explains Mike Wild, partner and principal architect at Wild I CRG. “They gave us all of the tools we needed to work through the design.”
Design specifics
Constructed out of natural materials such as wood and stone, the double-height auditorium features a sloping, acoustically treated ceiling, a raked floor, and a stage. A large Da-Lite Cinema Contour Progressive 282-inch by 162-inch video screen serves as a backdrop, with two smaller Da-Lite 192-inch by 108-inch screens flanking the platform. Behind the large center screen WSDG designed a “membrane resonator” for low frequency absorption. A front-of-house (FOH) production station sits at the front of the balcony, featuring three ceiling-mounted speakers and two Digital Projection E-Vision video projectors. An Allen & Heath DLive 64-channel digital mixing console also sits at FOH, in combination with an Allen & Heath IP8 audio control system to streamline switching between basic and more sophisticated productions. Control for the projection system’s multiple inputs is supplied by an Extron DTP CrossPoint 4K matrix switcher.
First Lutheran's setup includes an Allen & Heath DLive 64-channel digital mixing board and an Allen & Heath 1P8 lecture sound control system. Image: Jill Ockhardt Blaufuss
Constructed out of natural materials such as wood and stone, the double-height auditorium features a sloping, acoustically treated ceiling, a raked floor, and a stage.
Behind the large center screen WSDG designed a “membrane resonator” for low frequency absorption.
First Lutheran’s goal of hosting not only worship but other types of events meant that WSDG needed to create an environment that supported (at times, high-output) musical performances while at the same time prioritizing speech intelligibility. “What we tried to do was keep the stage and house sound alive for acoustic programs by scattering reflections from the walls, the back of the house, and the vaulted ceiling, while keeping it controlled enough for high SPL music performances,” explains Andy Swerdlow, acoustic engineer at WSDG.
The initial reinforcement strategy utilized a line array speaker system typical of a performance venue, but that was a challenge for sightlines: not all congregants would be able to see the stage and the video screens properly, and the cabinets would also interfere with the projectors themselves. Instead, Dallas Anderson, system designer at Tricorne Audio, suggested the alternative of integrating Fulcrum Acoustic speaker arrays into the ceiling above stage left and right. “What Dallas came up with did something interesting by shading the walls a little bit. What the speakers do is focus sound into the audience, keeping it off the walls, and that worked really, really well,” Swerdlow says.
“What we tried to do was keep the stage and house sound alive for acoustic programs by scattering reflections from the walls, the back of the house, and the vaulted ceiling, while keeping it controlled enough for high SPL music performances."
Andy Swerdlow, Acoustic Engineer, WSDG, Highland, NY
Anderson elaborates that the passive cardioid subwoofer arrays by Fulcrum Acoustic he selected output 10dB less out of the back of the speakers than the front, providing more bass control. Because of this, resonance onstage is diminished. “The musicians and the other people on the stage aren’t hearing the same impactful bass that the congregation is hearing, so it feels more natural, and it also reduces feedback,” he explains. “With the Fulcrum speakers we don’t have arrays hanging down low and presenting that physical barrier for projection, but we can still maintain high SPL for concert-style events.”
Silent partner
Joshua Morris, COO and partner at WSDG, notes that for congregants and visitors to the church, the acoustical and AV design should be invisible. “If we do our job right, no one is going to really know that we were there,” he says. At First Lutheran the goal is to help people immerse themselves in worship, or a concert, or a lecture without distracting acoustic behavior. “That was critical, and everything else flowed from that. We were very clear that we were designing for amplified music and amplified speech. We needed to create that sense of immersion, but one that was very controlled.”
“If we do our job right, no one is going to really know that we were there."
Joshua Morris, COO and Partner, WSDG, Highland, NY
Prior to––and to some degree, during––the initial design phase, Wild and Damico were in regular contact with several church committees and task forces to gain feedback on what they were creating. (Damico estimates that the pair sat through 80 to 100 hours of meetings.) While digesting all of this information can, at times, be a daunting task, Wild believes it’s a crucial part of the process. “You want input,” he says. “You want everybody to feel like they have some sort of say on what the output is going to be.”
At the same time, it’s necessary to guide these conversations towards a productive outcome, meaning that not all feedback can be put into practice. “Through all of the committee and task force meetings we got opinions and suggestions on all ends of the spectrum, but we still had to have the end goal be pretty concrete,” Damico states. “Certain suggestions didn’t make it in, and a lot did. I was really proud of how the congregation handled itself in that task force setting.”
SIDE NOTE ...
Musical Chairs
Chairs or pews? Pews or chairs? During the construction of The Celebration Center at First Lutheran Church in Fargo, North Dakota, this question was mulled over in various forms.
And for good reason. One of Senior Pastor Corey Biertness’ mandates for the new space was that he wanted to feel as if he was preaching to a full worship center even when attendance was minimal. In a region where winters are harsh, congregation members aren’t always able to get to church services due to dangerous road conditions. So how can one make a room feel full even when it isn’t? The answer: chairs.
“Ultimately we decided not to do pews, because we could place chairs in different configurations and make a 700-seat venue a 300-seat venue,” says Mike Wild, partner and principal architect at local Wild I CRG. “It was a key factor in how we laid out the interior of the space, and it gave us the flexibility to fulfill what the senior pastor was asking for.”
