Sound Space Vision solution for Royal Academy
- Details
SSV’s brief was to modernise and equip Burlington Gardens’ 19th-century lecture theatre for 21st century presentation and performance, and this was later expanded to include acoustics advice on the new gallery spaces and the learning centre, as well as mechanical systems.
In collaboration with the architectural teams, SSV facilitated a design with minimal impact on the heritage features of the Grade II* listed building, yet provides a future-proofed technical design for the Academy’s planned lectures, debates, panel discussions, conferences, recitals, and hires.
The form of the new lecture theatre went through several iterations; common to all being the reduction in height from three to two storeys. The form settled on a tight, almost semi-circular, bowl with a steep rake for a total capacity of over 250, bringing audience and presenter into close communication.
The combination of windows on all sides and a listed historic interior at first floor level presented SSV with two specific challenges: to find projectors and a screen that would be usable in daylight, and to provide sufficient acoustic dampening to overcome the natural reverberance of the volume of space which hinders good speech intelligibility. Associated with this was the choice and location of loudspeaker to serve the bowl-like audience.
SSV devised a full package which overcame this and more. Lighting bars hang discreetly on three sides of the room to light speakers’ faces without shadows. An infrastructure of lighting and AV connectivity is available at three levels around the room – in the ceiling, the balcony floor and the stage floor. Edge-blended projectors support large format, high-quality art presentations with excellent colour rendering – imperative for the Academy – and facilitate in-house broadcasts and web casts. A digital audio system provides amplification and pick-up for recording, streaming, hearing assistance and interpretation. Digital column array loudspeakers provide clarity in a challenging reverberant acoustic.
Isolation from external noise and internal building services was also required, alongside MEP and AV systems that would not disturb nearby residents. This was achieved with heavy, acoustically-treated secondary glazing to the windows and the roof light, and a specification that the mechanical plant adjacent to the theatre should rest on a floating concrete slab to limit noise and vibration.
The RA’s long design and build process culminated with grand opening celebrations in May 2018, coinciding with the RA’s 250 birthday celebrations. The transformation – and the lecture theatre in particular – has garnered considerable public and critical acclaim.
(Jim Evans)
