Naptastic

The outer back walls of the sanctuary would really benefit from some acoustic treatment. Ideally, we would hang round diffuser / absorber panels, 3 on one side, 4 on the other. I have an idea for building some art pieces that would be acoustically what we need, and also art. There are also off-the-shelf models in sixteen different colors of boring.

A diffuser has a specific shape, like a slice off the side of a long cylinder. Acoustically, it's partially reflective and partially absorbtive.

The idea for the art project is to build the same shape and structure, but use sparsely perforated metal as the decorative surface instead of cloth, and paint icons on each panel representing one of our core values. The inside of the metal would be filled with cloth, so it would still have the right mix of being acoustically reflective and absorptive, and it wouldn't be boring to look at.

Drawings will be helpful.

We could pack much of the unusable space in the ceiling with more acoustic absorbers and that room would only get better. Given the kinds of programs we have in there, it makes sense to try to get the driest acoustic possible.

The Gathering Space gets LOUD. If we put some absorbers up where it's hard to dust, it would go a long way to make that room more comfortable.

It's worth pointing out that “your shared spaces are loud, which stresses me out and makes me leave” is a piece of feedback you will never get, but it's true for people. We don't even realize how much the noise stresses us out but it does.