The current Building Committee is the result of a merger between the former Restoration, Access, and Planning (RAP) Committee and the former Building and Grounds Committee. We are the congregational stewards of our own material surroundings here at ASC.
We prioritize and implement projects having to do with our “meetinghouse”, its interior and exterior elements, its structure and function. We often serve as the active interface between our congregation’s historic physical presence and the larger surrounding community, the neighborhood, the city, and the region, whose fabric we partly compose. We educate ourselves to be worthy caretakers of this important edifice and its valuable decorative details we have so amazingly inherited.
We take on projects large and small, from the periodic all-volunteer dusting of the Sanctuary or de-junking and painting of useful hidden spaces, to once-in-a-century capital projects like restoration of the steeple structure or of the Sanctuary interior. We seek out the expertise of architects and engineers, as needed, and oversee construction contracts, as the general contractor on small jobs and as the owner’s representative on large jobs. We hold occasional “Work Parties” where the entire congregation and friends are invited to participate in various “spruce up” operations, in exchange for free pizza, camaraderie, and the satisfaction of a manual task accomplished communally.
Former committee members and ongoing congregation members Jim Vogel, an architect, and Lisa Howe, an architectural conservator, continue to advise the Building Committee, even though they are no longer everyday participants in Build Comm business. We coordinate our major activities with the Finance Committee and church administration, as these are our closest team mates in the care and function of the building. We participate in the ASC Council and the Long Range Plan.
Contact the Building Committee at building@ASCBoston.org.
New members are welcome who will commit to embrace our stewardship mission, particularly people with prior experience in architectural preservation, construction management, facility maintenance, or any of the building trades.
