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Zion's United Church of Christ: Revolutionary Technology

Vistacom has worked together with Zion's United Church of Christ to design and integrate a brand new audiovisual system in the church sanctuary. In designing the system Vistacom engineers were faced with the challenge of providing a state-of-the-art audiovisual system that met the Church's needs, while maintaining the architectural aesthetics and historical beauty of the facility, which housed the Liberty Bell in 1777 while the British occupied Philadelphia. The greatest design challenge to overcome was providing a projected image large enough and bright enough to be seen from the rear of the Sanctuary without disturbing the building's architecture. An innovative projection system had to be designed. Vistacom integrated a projection screen 81" in height and in a 16:9 (wide- screen) aspect ratio. The screen's unique feature is the ability to automatically ascend from its case when deployed. This eliminated the need to hang a screen from a wall in the sanctuary. A custom fabricated, steel platform for the 400 pound screen is positioned over the choir pews, behind the pulpit, and in front of the wall that contains the organ pipes. The screen is mounted on a horizontal diagonal so that it can be seen by the church's attendees on both sides of the center aisle. "With no blueprints available for the church, it was difficult to design the geometry of the projection system within the space," stated Mike Parry, design engineer for Vistacom. "In the end it came together and fits well in the space."