Notes on Church Seating

The research for this article was done in August and September 2003, and I finally got around to writing it during Lent 2004, as part of my Musings After Midnight series. If you've jumped into this page from Google, or wherever, welcome! I hope this helps you plan your place of worship, and God bless.

Last fall, the Calvert House Chapel was reseated. It was an interesting project for a statistician, particularly one who likes maximization like myself. The most interesting question was one I had never considered before: how much space does it take to comfortably sit? Though I'm sure automakers and Boeing have reams of research on this subject, they haven't seen fit to make it accessible to a Google search. Also, I doubt they worry about Catholic chapels much.

The question has to be divided into three parts: seat width, seat pitch (distance between rows), and kneeling pitch (since it's Catholic.) A summary table appears at the bottom. For those of you who are not American, the summary table contains metric conversions, or you can multiply the inches by 2.5. Everyone, American or not, should also note that I do not consider handicapped access. Calvert is a very old building, with stairs on entry, and so it needs to handle wheelchairs and crutches on a special basis. All the numbers I provide are too small for that. I promise that if someone provides $1 million to build a new chapel, I will redo this entire analysis. Contact Calvert if you're so inclined.

Seat Width

One of the few public notes I found about Boeing's system is that their most important factor in airline comfort is an empty middle seat. That felt a little strange, given the touting of legroom, and people's complaints about knees and seat backs. Then I checked. For those of you who just jumped to this page, I'm about 6' 1'' (185cm) and weigh about 210 lbs (95kg), fairly large but certainly not abnormal. I measured myself from shoulder to shoulder, and got about 21 inches. When I sit casually, my arms hang down from my sides, making my total "personal width" about 23 inches. Since I don't necessarily want to touch my neighbor - with some exceptions, admittedly - that makes about 24 inches the preferred width. More testing showed that going below 19 inches was difficult; I had to scrunch uncomfortably. Furthermore, this was just as uncomfortable as having too little room for knees; more, in some ways, since I could also scoot back in the seat, or bend differently, to increase legroom. Like most people, I'm not double-jointed enough to shrink my collarbone. Thus, 24 inches is luxurious, 21 is reasonable, 19 is minimal. I just found a short Slate article about seating. Theaters are moving into seats about 23 inches wide, and at least one church pew maker generally builds for 21. My figures are validated.

Most Calvert Chapel chairs are about 19 1/2 inches wide, and we can add a little space in most rows, making the width about 21 inches. That pretty much works, though I'm still happier on an end or with an empty to one side. Oh, and in case you're wondering, most economy American airline seats are less than 18 inches from armrest to armrest; even adding a generous two inches for the armrest means too little room. One source for airline information is Sizewise. No wonder the middle seat rule applies. Reducing economy width from six seats to five is a 17% reduction, equivalent to about a five-inch increase in seat pitch.

Seat Pitch

Here the complaints come fast and furious, about chair backs banging into knees. The interesting thing is that there really is enough space on airplanes to accomodate the vast majority of people, if it was used properly. Very few people have trouble with standard airline pitch. Really. If you don't believe me, take a yardstick, sit with your rear end against the back of a chair, and measure from where you touch the chair to the end of your knees. I got 27 inches, which seems about right. That makes approximately 33 inches quite respectable - add on two to three inches for a seat back, and another two to three inches for longer people and a little bit of air. Even 31 would do, and no American airline ducks under that. The real airline problem is reclining seats, which I would just eliminate. It's not like a twenty-degree angle really makes it easier to sleep, at least not for me. Straight seats would also be cheaper and more equal.

I'm not here to talk about airline economics, though. Back to the main story, setting non-reclining seats at 36 inches is luxurious, 33-34 inches is reasonable, 31 is minimal. An auditorium might get away with a bit less, but a Church has standing and sitting, and chairs don't need to be knocked around. From Calvert's perspective, its chairs are 22 1/2 inches long, so we set them at 34 or 35. An added bonus is that my size 10 sneaker is just under 12 inches long, so it makes a great one-foot measuring stick. What a pun, eh?

Kneeling Pitch

Unfortunately for a church designer, Catholicism doesn't restrict itself to standing and sitting. There's this kneeling thing. Before the latest norms, kneeling had been less stressed. I had argued that Calvert Chapel on Sunday was sufficiently full that the "lack of space" exception in Number 43 applied, but I lost. Apparently, there's a groundswell of kneeling fans.

Kneeling requires several more inches than standing. That requirement does not come from people in that position, rather from the up and down movement. The true minimum for kneeling is the distance from an extended foot - think ballet pointe style, or very high heel - to the front of the thigh. That measurement takes some work. A simpler one is to measure sitting down, from the ground to the top of the kneecap, then add five inches for the extended foot. For me, the measurement is about 26 inches, making 31 needed.

Being an experimentalist at heart, I got a few people to arrange the chairs comfortably, then measured the distance. The range of replies was between 34 and 38 inches, depending on the size and age of the person. I also let people rearrange the chairs at daily Mass, then measured where they found comfortable. In general, they pushed chairs back from the default 35 inches to about 37. Thus, based on these results, I'd suggest about 40 inches as a good standard; 37 is reasonable, and 35 is minimal. Kneelers would change these results substantially, as one would measure from the middle of the kneeling pad but not add much for entry and egress. In this world, Calvert doesn't have the money for that.

Summary Table

Written Lent 2004.