Case Study

Clayhouse Church

Clayhouse, a church located in Colorado Springs, came to Lambda looking for solutions to facelift and update their main sanctuary. They wanted to take a dark brown room and transform it into a place that felt inviting for people to worship in. They didn’t have specific plans on how to do this, so they came to us and asked us to help them design and create the look they wanted to portray, but didn’t know how. The project ended up with updated lighting looks, new projection and custom interior design. ​

Clayhouse trusted Lambda with the overall design so, we brought in Collin Stoddard, of the “The Stoddard Building Group”, to talk with Clayhouse leadership and set a style tone for the overall space. Collin set color tones for the project and worked with us to figure out what we needed to focus on to hit the goal of a total transformation. As Clayhouse didn’t know their budget at the beginning of the project and were working to finalize their numbers, we presented a number of options. In a “world with no budget” possibilities were limitless, but we were able to take these initial ideas and then work back down to a core of major pieces once we had the final budget. The Stoddard group, like Lambda, has a history of working with churches and shares our design philosophy that any change should be a big one. People want to see where their giving dollars are going and even small budget changes need to count and feel big most of time. The Stoddard group focused on a new sign, a repaint of the room, some custom, hand crafted barn doors to add light control and make the windows feel bigger, and added some color details and texture to the large side walls.

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While the Stoddard group began with the interior design, Lambda began by re-working the tech geear in the room to better serve a more intimate feel. One of the first things we looked at was adding a new stage wash to ensure a nice even light across the stage and to make sure that for the pastor and band it was a warm tone for skin. We used LED ellipsoidal lights from Zebra Productions to provide light and control across the stage. We added colored backlights to texture and provide a future setup for quality live streaming. ​

Most of the time in our lighting designs, we use color from behind having front color tends to turn people into green aliens or blue smurfs and can be an added nightmare for video work. We re-purposed some of the church’s older LEDs as upward light color across their new black velour drapes across the back wall. The drape did so much to provide a pallete for the color to pop and for stage design pieces to hang in front of it. The Stoddard group built custom décor pieces from barn metal and reclaimed fence wood to hang in front of the drape adding a current almost farmhouse design feel as the church’s statement piece.  ​

One of the most fun items we were able to add to this room was the new dimmable house lighting. The Stoddard group took some 4x4 wood posts and stained them to a warm rustic feel to go along with the other décor elements. We then added light fixtures with loose cord dropped Edison Bulbs for some trending lighting. Combined with some work from a local electrician, we tied these lights into a dimmer and connected dimmer to the DMX lighting system. This allowed for total control of all the different zones of the lighting over the main audience area, altar area, and back doors. The original lighting was simply 4 gym lights controlled by 4 around the room switches. They didn’t provided not enough light, added poor color and no atmosphere. As part of the new lighting system we added a touch screen and fader wing from Elation’s Onyx line and a wall control panel to allow simple stage light presets and house light settings. It will allow group to come in and easily use the room without firing up the lighting computer or wandering around the entire room to find the lighting switches.

One of the most fun items we were able to add to this room was the new dimmable house lighting. The Stoddard group took some 4x4 wood posts and stained them to a warm rustic feel to go along with the other décor elements. We then added light fixtures with loose cord dropped Edison Bulbs for some trending lighting. Combined with some work from a local electrician, we tied these lights into a dimmer and connected dimmer to the DMX lighting system. This allowed for total control of all the different zones of the lighting over the main audience area, altar area, and back doors. The original lighting was simply 4 gym lights controlled by 4 around the room switches. They didn’t provided not enough light, added poor color and no atmosphere. As part of the new lighting system we added a touch screen and fader wing from Elation’s Onyx line and a wall control panel to allow simple stage light presets and house light settings. It will allow group to come in and easily use the room without firing up the lighting computer or wandering around the entire room to find the lighting switches.

Clayhouse is a mid-size church and as is common with most churches this size, it does not have a large tech staff. In order to add lighting control and not have to add another volunteer position we incorporated midi control. Midi control, common in the music world, allows for a list of cue’s or changes to be set in the lighting software then triggered by ProPresenter automatically as the slide operator clicks through announcements and songs. It’s so fun to see coordinated changes of graphics on a large screen and fluid movements of house lighting dim levels, stage light levels, and colors. Without this midi control Clayhouse would be reliant on another lighting volunteer and a volunteer working as a director trying to time each change.

With projection upgrade, we added a new screen and projector for Clayhouse. The church had started with two side projection screens. These screens were too small for easy viewing and suffered from poor projector output and resolution. In an effort to add more color to the wall and draw people’s attention to the center of the room, we moved to a center screen design that was much larger than the previous screens and a Sonnoc Laser projector to up the resolution to 1080p and up the light output to a screen appropriate range. We also re-purposed one of the church’s older projectors and aimed it at the back wall to utilize ProPresenter’s stage display feature for the pastor and band to see. ​

This was a particularly fun install as the changes Lambda was able to make were so visible. Partnering with The Stoddard Building Group was particularly fun in being able to look at the design as a whole and decide what interior design needed to happen to make it feel like a complete look. As is our normal practice, on Sunday morning, we hung out to check in on church staff and enjoy the changes and answer any questions they might have. It became a bit of a bottleneck at the door as each group stopped to just take everything in. Comments from “wow”, to “I cant believe it” were common.  The pastor and worship pastor commented “This is a great day for Clayhouse”. We agree it’s a great day helping to transform a room that did not fit the vision of the church to a room design that instead embodied it. ​