How to choose a synagogue architect

Choosing an architect or design partner for a shul is one of the most consequential decisions a building committee will make, and it is unlike hiring for any commercial project. The building has to satisfy halacha, a rav, a board, a membership, and the donors funding it — five constituencies that do not always agree — while serving as sanctuary, social hall, classroom, and community living room across a week that never really ends. Most committees do this once in a generation, against a design industry that mostly has never drawn a mechitzah. The gap between those two facts is where synagogue projects go wrong.

This guide is the checklist we would hand any building committee, whether for an established congregation, a growing kehillah, or a Chabad house planning its first permanent home. It applies equally to choosing an architect of record and to choosing the design firm that shapes the experience inside the walls — on most successful projects those are partners on one team, and the questions below expose whether a candidate belongs on yours.

Start with a portfolio in the typology

Religious assembly buildings are a specialty, and synagogues are a specialty within it. A firm that has delivered offices or even churches has not confronted the specific program of a shul: a sanctuary that must feel full on a regular Shabbos and hold three times the crowd on Yamim Noraim, a social hall that flips from kiddush to wedding, classrooms, a kosher kitchen — sometimes two — and circulation that works when the building is at its fullest on the days elevators and microphones are not an option. Ask for completed buildings in the typology and go stand in them. Our own synagogue design practice sits alongside a body of Chabad house work that is, as far as we know, deeper than any other interior design firm’s — and the pattern recognition from that repetition is exactly what a committee is buying. Whoever you interview, weigh built volume in this typology heavily.

Test halachic fluency directly

A synagogue design team does not replace your rav — but it must be able to hold a serious conversation with him. Ask candidates directly: How do you approach mechitzah height, sightlines, and the halachic opinions behind them? How do you orient the aron kodesh when the site fights the direction of Jerusalem — and what did you do the last time it happened? Where do you place and elevate the bimah, and how do you balance a central bimah against sightlines and seat count? A fluent firm answers from projects, not from a quick search; it knows the difference between communities on these questions and designs for yours rather than a generic one. We have written publicly about exactly these problems — from orienting the aron kodesh toward Jerusalem to mechitzah design and bimah placement — and we would encourage committees to demand the same depth from every firm at the table. The women’s section deserves its own scrutiny: ask to see how a candidate’s past projects handle sightlines, acoustics, and dignity there, because that is where inexperienced teams fail quietly.

Ask how they run a committee process

Synagogue projects are not approved by a client; they are approved by a community. A design partner who has only served single decision-makers will drown in a process where the rav, the president, the building chair, and three major donors each hold real influence — and where consensus, once lost, takes years to rebuild. Ask candidates how they structure decisions: who approves what, at which milestones, with what materials in the room. The firms that succeed in this typology run a disciplined sequence — program first, plan second, finishes last — so the committee decides one layer at a time instead of relitigating everything at every meeting. We wrote about the dynamics in working with boards and donors; a firm that recognizes every problem in that piece has done this work, and a firm that promises the process will be simple has not.

Renderings that carry the capital campaign

In this typology, design does not follow fundraising — it powers it. Donors give to a building they can see: photorealistic renderings of the sanctuary, the aron, the social hall with their community in it move commitments in a way floor plans never will, and naming opportunities become concrete when there is an image behind each one. Ask candidates whether rendering-quality visualization is in scope, when it arrives in the sequence, and whether they have produced campaign materials before — then ask the reference committees whether the images actually moved money. Producing campaign-ready 3D renderings early is standard in our own process precisely because the campaign usually cannot wait for construction documents.

Insist on a phased building plan

Most communities cannot fund the whole vision at once, and the honest response is architecture that anticipates it. A phased master plan — sanctuary and social core first, classrooms or a mikvah in a later phase, expansion joints and utility capacity placed where the future building will need them — lets construction match the campaign instead of outrunning it. Ask candidates to show a project they phased: what was built first, what came later, and what they roughed in early to make phase two cheap instead of destructive. The alternative — a building designed only for today’s budget — costs a community twice when growth arrives. Our guide to what a synagogue costs to build covers the budget side of this conversation, including the ranges a committee should expect before committing to ground-up construction versus conversion.

Judge documentation depth before you judge design

Committees compare firms on imagery, but projects succeed or fail on drawings. Thin documentation produces change orders, contractor improvisation, and a finished building that resembles the rendering only loosely — a painful outcome to explain to donors who gave against that rendering. Ask to see a complete construction documentation set from a comparable project: finish plans and schedules, lighting and ceiling plans, millwork details for the aron and bimah, and a full FF&E specification down to the seating. Every HH project closes with a Spec Book — drawings, finish schedules, and complete FF&E documentation in one deliverable — because the contractor should price exactly what the committee approved, and the next building chair, years from now, should inherit a record of what was built. Our process page shows where that documentation sits in the sequence.

Reference questions worth asking

Call the building chair and the rav, not just the office. Ask operationally:

• Did the design survive contact with the rav’s halachic review, or did it need rework?
• How close was final cost to the range given when the campaign was launched?
• Did the renderings match the building the community got?
• How did the firm behave when the committee disagreed with itself?
• What would you phase differently, and did the firm raise phasing or did you?
• Would you hire them again for phase two without interviewing anyone else?

Red flags

• No completed synagogues — explained away with “sacred space is sacred space.”
• Halachic questions answered in generalities, or deferred entirely with “we’ll follow your rabbi’s guidance” and no evidence of ever having done so.
• No process for committee decision-making — or visible impatience with the idea of one.
• Renderings out of scope, priced as an extra, or scheduled after the campaign needs them.
• A single-phase design with no answer for what happens when the community grows.
• A fee far below every other proposal — the missing money returns as thin drawings during construction.

How we fit this checklist

We publish this list because it is the standard we invite committees to hold us to: more Chabad houses than any other interior design firm, synagogue and community work across 21 states, deep fluency in mechitzah, aron, bimah, and kosher kitchen requirements, campaign-ready renderings early, phased master plans matched to real fundraising, and a Spec Book closing every project. If your community is planning a shul, a Chabad house, or an expansion, we are glad to be measured against every question above — and you should insist that every firm you interview is too.