Clovis Heimsath, founder of Heimsath Architects, passed away recently just before his 91st birthday.  We have been remembering Clovis, his energy, his curiosity, and his delight in sharing his opinionated ideas with others.  Our colleague, Mickey Peavler of ATX Architects captured some of this in a podcast he recorded with Clovis in 2011.  We are pleased to share this special recording.  For those who knew Clovis, we hope it brings back warm memories.   For those of you who don't know Clovis, we hope you'll find this introduction entertaining and informative. Our spec ..read more

Insulation Tips for Hot, Humid Climates   The best way to insulate your house (or church, school, or office building) greatly depends on what type of environment you live in.  If you look at historic houses and buildings, you can learn a lot about how to design for your climate, because early builders had to adapt to the local conditions to try to make buildings as comfortable as possible.  Purple Heron Residence.  New construction utilizing many of the details discussed in this article. A quick example of this is the placement of the fireplace in northern versus southern ..read more

This discovery started with a simple, seemingly innocent question, “why not use a permeable paver to deal with poor drainage?” Months later, following many unfruitful searches, I can pretty confidently say the answer is simple: there once was a permeable paver, also called drainable paver on the market, but it no longer exists. I got the question from our client, a school district project manager who had a problem with standing storm water. An existing area with conventional pavers turned into a pond during big rains. Sloping the pavers to drain the water away wasn’t an option. The surrounding ..read more

On a sunny morning in early August, I joined the Shepherd of the Hills congregation as they celebrated Sunday worship outdoors. Like many congregations, we weren’t inside the newly renovated sanctuary due to Covid concerns. But the key to the success of this outdoor gathering was several years in the making. Careful planning and creative design transformed an underutilized courtyard into a beautiful and effective sacred landscape. Early in the master planning process, congregation members identified the courtyard as a major issue. Many were concerned about drainage. Others were worried about c ..read more

Each morning, for the past four Sundays, I have made preparations for attending church. I toss on jeans and a t-shirt, slip on house shoes, grab a cup of coffee, and settle down comfortably in front of my computer. As the top of the hour approaches, I pull up Facebook or one of several streaming platforms and join an on-line worship service. In normal times, our firm’s specialty in church architecture I make a point of attending a lot of church services, especially for our clients. But I can only attend one on any given Sunday. Now, with so many churches going virtual, I’ve worshipped with ov ..read more

Heimsath Architect’s team members are now in week 4 of self-isolation.  Like many of you, our communications with the outside are mostly through the various conferences call applications (Go to Meeting, Zoom, Skype).  It has been working well, though I find that looking all the faces in boxes invariably gets the Brady Bunch theme song stuck in my head.  For the past 20 years, we have done our design/production work using a software program called Archicad. We have long incorporated its 3D environment into our design and communication process with our clients and ourselves.  Now with Social D ..read more

As a leader, the last thing you want is to find yourself in the middle of a complex task you aren’t sure you can do well. This fear is compounded if you’ve been a part of a failed project (of any kind) in the past. How do you get past the past, and put down any old baggage from past failures? Better yet, how do you learn from the past so that you can be calm during change and resolve all types of church conflicts without hurting or derailing the building project? Forgive yourself. No one person knows everything and everyone makes mistakes. Holding on to hurts or blaming yourself can free ..read more

Leaders are always ahead of the game in the process of change. They have to be. They came up with the idea, or quickly embraced it.  Everyone else is at least one step behind. That’s just the way it works.  However, growing building program support for church transitions requires everyone, or at least a large number of the congregation to also get on board. Inevitably, there will be people who miss all the announcements, don’t check their e-mails, and never read the newsletters. They will demand to know, “What the heck is going on?” and “When did this happen?” just when the leadership is r ..read more

Crafting Mission and Vision Statements can be excruciating. Most people know that their congregation should have them, but they aren’t sure why. It feels a bit foreign, as though “business-speak” has crept into the vocabulary of faith.  And connecting building projects to mission statements and vision statements may seem to be totally irrelevant.  But in reality these connections are important in dealing with church conflict. First, it helps to have some basic definitions.  Simply put, a Mission Statement tells everyone why you exist.  A Vision Statement tells everyone where your energy is ..read more

Every change, no matter how welcome, causes stress because making a change means letting go of something familiar. That is a loss, and when there is loss there is mourning.  Anyone handling church conflict and change should also anticipate the importance of mourning for individuals and for groups. All of us deal with low levels of change/loss/mourning on a daily basis and manage to find our way through without too much difficulty. But faith identity runs deep. Changes made at a church or synagogue or mosque may spark strong feelings that are surprising or uncomfortable.  And when groups resp ..read more