We couldn't afford to build our own meeting house (church) so we ended up combining it with an art installation, so we could get grant money from art patrons. This put us somewhat at the mercy of the artist and the architects and designers involved. It caused a lot of controversy within the congregation and, although we do have our art site, we don't have the practical space we need to run the place efficiently.

Personally, I'd have settled for a prefab steel building or something that we could have finished out later. At the very least, we should have stood up more to the designers. Whoever you hire, stick to your guns.