We recently delivered all the new furniture for the Cathedral of the Incarnation in Garden City, NY. The Dean’s objective was to create a versatile, flexible nave that reflects the history of the Cathedral. It also needed to ensure it could adapt to the ever-changing needs of the congregation and local community, using different church layouts and church floor plans. It turns out the Cathedral’s timing was perfect, but for wholly unforeseen reasons.
The 84 new Charterhouse church pews/stacking benches and 260 new Coventry mid-century modern stacking chairs were on site, ready and able to support the opportunity for socially-distanced private prayer without missing a step.
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Original plans were to accommodate up to 540 parishioners in a variety of church layouts. However, in order to offer adaptability and flexibility while complying with COVID-19 social and physical distancing requirements, we provided the Dean and the Facilities team at the Cathedral with five additional furniture layouts.
These arrangements seat between 32 and 143 people, in multiple easy-to-deploy arrangements including service in the round. The beauty of the benches is that they enable members of the same household to make the most of private prayer. We have included the church seating layouts we created for the Dean, below, and hope these offer a useful guide for you if you are considering how best to try and accommodate social distancing and private prayer in your church.
The 5 church layouts
Church layout #1
The “maximum” social/physical distance layout seats of 63 to 143 depending on the number of family members sharing each bench. This layout uses 47 Charterhouse benches and 16 Coventry chairs.
Church layout #2
The “round” social/physical distance layout seats of 46 to 128 depending on the number of family members sharing each bench. This layout uses 36 Charterhouse benches and 10 Coventry chairs.
Church layout #3
The “curved” social/physical distance layout seats of 34 to 124 depending on the number of family members sharing each bench. This layout uses 22 Charterhouse benches and 12 Coventry chairs.
Church layout #4
The “medium” social/physical distance layout seats of 44 to 110 depending on the number of family members sharing each bench. This layout uses 28 Charterhouse benches and 16 Coventry chairs.
Church layout #5
The “low” social/physical distance layout seats of 32 to 82 depending on the number of family members sharing each bench. This layout uses 20 Charterhouse benches and 12 Coventry chairs.
Experts in flexible furniture solutions for places of worship
We can help you in providing the flexibility and the adaptability that your place of worship needs for you to provide worship and other activities at a physical distance while also keeping in mind your future needs.
To contact us about how Luke Hughes can help you provide any social/physical distancing layouts.
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