About This Project

Having quickly outgrown their first worship hall in a local middle school in Atlanta’s historic West End community, Impact Church approached Duckett to help them locate and design a new larger space.  Duckett worked with the church’s building committee to verify the program for the expansion and develop a plan to convert a 1960′s era 72,000 square foot industrial warehouse in a burgeoning industrial corridor into a worship and educational center, with a phased plan for future growth.

Designing within a very tight budget, Duckett’s architects responded by taking advantage of the two story open structure in half of the warehouse, converting it into a worship space that seats 980 worshippers and a large gathering foyer with a prominent entry canopy.  Worship at Impact is highly varied, involving passion plays, music, controlled lighting and computer-generated multi-media. The worship hall, then, was designed much like a black-box theater, with sophisticated lighting, audio-visual systems and daylight control.

The balance of the warehouse was converted into classrooms, a large youth space, a nursery, and new restrooms.  Additional space was later expanded to become the church’s offices and conference room.

Minimal modifications were made to the exterior of the building.  New openings for the entry, exit were cut into existing walls.  The church benefits from the upper clerestory windows as that influx of natural light can breathe life and energy into the building and its patrons while providing a quality sustainable impact.  An architectural element was added to “announce” the main building entry and a patio/plaza was provided at the main entry for after-service socializing.

The renovations were feathered into existing spaces to create a seamless connection between old and new.