House of Worship Design with Vectorworks Spotlight

Image courtesy of Church of the Highlands.

In recent years, the production level of worship events at churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, and more has increased greatly. The demand, and the expectation, for quality design has never been higher.

This spike poses a special opportunity for you as a designer, but it also presents unique challenges.

Designing for houses of worship typically involves a range in team size, from sole practitioners to dozens of stakeholders. Additionally, the design and work required blend the traditional boundaries of architectural/interior design, show design, and integrated systems design.

So, you’ll need a tool that provides access to useful features across all three areas.

The solution? You guessed it: the Vectorworks suite of entertainment design products. With these, there’s no chance of duplicated work, problems transferring data between software, and — most importantly — no need to purchase multiple applications.

Continue reading to see how you can use the design software to create meaningful productions.

With Vectorworks’ hybrid drawing environment, you’re able to create 2D sketches, 3D models, custom renderings, and even interactive presentations of your stage design and scenic components. Additionally, you can use the hybrid drawing environment and Vectorworks Spotlight’s specialized drawing tools to highlight your place of worship’s interior and architectural elements.

Whether it be steeples, stained glass, or any other beautiful features you want to show off, Vectorworks Spotlight gives you access to a plentiful library of textures and materials. This way, you can properly visualize and design for your place of worship’s special character.

You’ll also need to manage your facility’s signal flows and connected systems to put on a successful production.

Luckily, there’s ConnectCAD, a signal flow add-on that lets you create easy-to-read schematic drawings and diagrams of your rack layouts. ConnectCAD also helps you better communicate with contractors with a range of experiences in A/V work.

And since you’re using ConnectCAD right inside Vectorworks Spotlight, you have access to an extensive manufacturer library.

Click here to learn more about ConnectCAD.

Vectorworks Spotlight excels at accounting for your practical considerations as well as creating and presenting your design’s more conceptual elements like scenic designs, stage elements, and more.

Additionally, creating templates with viewports and sheet layers can help you easily present your conceptual designs to stakeholders.

The stakeholders you’ll be presenting to also won’t come from an entertainment industry background, so clear and captivating presentations will help them understand your vision for a production.

For more in-depth insights into production design with Vectorworks Spotlight, click here.

Lastly, you can use Vectorworks Spotlight for more than design. You can use it to manage your productions and make sure that they go off without a hitch.

For example, if you’re bringing in a truckload of new set elements for a specific holiday production, you can track your budget, schedule your team’s workdays, and even manage your entire inventory using Vectorworks Spotlight.

Click the link below to learn more:

READ: “BEYOND DESIGN — MANAGE SHOWS AND EVENTS WITH VECTORWORKS SPOTLIGHT”

Lastly, we're leaving you with a free webinar for even more tips on designing for houses of worship.

Click below to watch Andy Bentley, central production director for Elevation Church, share tips on rendering, file organization and collaborating with internal teams:

WATCH: "EVOLVING THE HOUSE OF WORSHIP MARKET"