Memorial Day is often referred to as the unofficial start of summer and this year it has even more special significance at OCUUC as we open the church for in-person Sunday services and we head out on long-delayed travel for the first time since March 2020. You can rest assured, however, that your Sanctuary Construction Committee will continue on the forward path to bring the new sanctuary plans to reality. We gather on Zoom from places near and far to stay on task.
This week our committee held a very productive meeting with architect David Keitel of domusstudio to continue to fine tune the sanctuary's exterior design to meet new code requirements and to reflect the increase in construction material costs in the aftermath of the pandemic. The group had a thoughtful Zoom discussion lasting an hour and a half. Now the revised design goes to the project structural engineer to bring it to the final stages.
In our Zoom meeting I mentioned that Linda and I were on a short RV stay at a state beach in Malibu and David mentioned a church project in Malibu designed by domus that might be worth a visit if time permitted on our trip.
We took David up on his suggestion and had an informative Malibu Pacific (Presbyterian) Church guided tour of the exterior and interior led by the construction project lead Chris. He was effusive in his positive evaluation of David and the domus organization and the new church (built from bottom up after a fire destroyed the entire church campus in 2007). domus was chosen in a rigorous architectural competition for the multi-million dollar project.
I was able to glean lots of good information and advice from Chris that I will now pass along to the committee the next time we gather. As Rev. Sian said in an e-mail when I shared a photo from our Malibu Pacific Church visit, "Awesome! Someday soon, we may be contacted by a church to tour our sanctuary."
Looking forward to that day, Rev. Sian! As always, if anyone--Zoomers or Roomers--has questions or comments, please contact me at craigspery@aol.com or even better, let's talk after the church service now that we have an opportunity to gather together in person.
Regards,
Craig
Craig Spery is the chair of the sanctuary planning and construction committee