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Time, money, quality: they say you can only ever have two of the three. Either the timing goes to pot, the cost runs away, or the quality is sacrificed to meet the other constraints. So is it ever possible to build a building that finishes on time and within budget and is also fit for the long-term work and vision of the church?
To go one step further: is it possible to balance time, money and quality while adopting a biblical mandate to be at peace with everyone (and avoiding a dramatic Grand-Designs-style relational fall-out?)
Sure, a building project is always likely to have ups and downs – at the outset the prospect might be utterly daunting – but in our experience it is actually possible to bring all of these metrics together for a successful project.
Considering a church building project? Here’s a few insights that might help.
Understand the vision and the building will follow
Sometimes churches come to us with a clear design brief, but often there’s just the makings of a brief, or no brief at all. (That isn’t a problem as we love to partner with churches to help them define the nature of their project.)
Perhaps you know you need to do something with your existing building, or you’ve bought a plot of land or a redundant building and are excited about releasing its potential. To endure the terrain and share the ride without losing heart, you’ll need inspired passengers and clarity about the destination.
Along with prayer, discernment, and a listening heart to hear what the Spirit is saying to the church (plus faith… LOTS of faith!) the start of the journey is about vision, communication and managing expectations.
Churches are unique architectural clients
Unlike a commercial or residential client, a church client is made up of a bunch of volunteers – perhaps 50, 250, 500 or 2000 people with diversity of gifts, opinions and enthusiasm for different church ministries.
For a successful church building project, an architect needs the skill of capturing the church’s calling and expressing this in practical ways. They must also be able to communicate an exciting vision balanced with faith-filled affordability to the congregation or membership and many other consultees. It helps to have solid experience of navigating the contextual and planning obstacle courses!
The value of a working group
While the whole church does need to be consulted and feel included, we always work on designs with a small working group of no more than 6 to 8 people first. These will be people who can commit to the initial task of defining and agreeing the project and first stage designs. It’s important that they are not exclusively church leaders, and not simply ‘agreeable’ people – healthy tension and differences of opinion strengthens designs. Together the working group and architect can reach agreement on an inspiring concept design that makes people’s eyes light up and properly meets the needs of the church.
The value of a masterplan approach
Often, initial designs are broken down into separate building phases to help fundraising targets and manage cashflow. It’s all too easy to fall into short-sighted ‘ad-hoc-ism’ – a well-meaning design solution to an immediate need that inadvertently prevents future development.
We advocate a masterplan-led approach to church building projects to avoid this pitfall. Going beyond the immediate issues, we can understand the vision for the next ten, twenty, or thirty years and design accordingly. This allows innovative solutions to sit within a wider context, solving larger scale problems (such as site zoning, circulation, entrance to and access around the site, and any new construction and/or redevelopment of buildings that may be required down the line).
Take a relational approach, from design to construction
Depending on the nature, scope and ambition of the project, there will be many stakeholders and consultees. It’s never too early to start talking to people who can help shape your building.
1. Ask your neighbours what they need
A church building project is often a once-a-generation opportunity and must be considered in light of the great commission to make disciples of all peoples. Finding out more about the areas of social need in your community can radically reshape a building design for more impactful outreach – it’s an amazing opportunity to engage with the church’s neighbours, to understand local priorities and to respond in tangible and specific ways.
A good community consultation process can also massively help the church in justifying and communicating the building’s design. It can:
2. Get to know your planning officers early
This is especially important for historic building projects and those in sensitive contexts. By
engaging in early pre-application consultation with planning officers, there are opportunities
for soliciting opinion, inviting advice and raising awareness of the upcoming project.
Knowing whether proposals are likely to achieve planning consent can guide the timing of inviting feedback from the congregation and church members. There’s a balance to be struck between raising enthusiasm for exciting potential designs… and making sure that the project is actually deliverable.
3. Invite building contractors into the design process
Usually, contractors get involved much further down the line, once planning consent has been granted and the detailed technical drawings already drawn up. However, we find that consulting a building contractor as early as possible can help shape the design in ways that will make the building easier to construct, quicker to build and more affordable.
Architects are skilled at designing buildings; contractors are the ones actually building them. While we can help estimate cost to a point (usually applying experience from other recent projects to apply prices per square metre as a guide) a consulting contractor will be well-placed to prepare a more detailed cost forecast, albeit based on many assumptions at this stage. Alternatively, a quantity surveyor may be appointed to prepare a project cost report.
This early cost analysis can form the basis of a project financial budget, either as a baseline to measure the cost of design changes or as a design constraint to work within. At this early stage, there doesn’t need to be a commitment to see the whole project through with the same contractor, provided they’re paid for their consultancy services.
Pursue cost certainty rather than the lowest cost
A good friend used to remind me that quality is remembered long after cost is forgotten. This is as true in the marketplace as it is in church building projects; and the pursuit of cost saving can be the source of deep project unrest. It easily leads to disputes and short-sighted decisions that, in the fulness of time, become far more costly.
Managing expectations of the whole church is essential for a smooth-running project and not least in the area of cost control. Since most church building projects rely on fundraising, grant funding, and faithful and sacrificial giving by church members, it’s essential that every penny is spent wisely and stewarded well.
Rather than opt for the lowest cost, our solution is to encourage churches to pursue cost certainty throughout their projects. Some of the ways to do this include:
A balanced building project is possible
Your church building project doesn’t have to include eye-watering overspends or ridiculously long delays. It is possible to balance time, money and quality without everybody falling out along the way.
From the earliest stages, prioritise healthy communication, maintain good relationships and adopt intentional strategies to create a collaborative project environment. It might not make dramatic TV but it’s a much more palatable process!
