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2020 - 29

2023

James Potter Building, Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust

The James Potter Building is a brand new 6 storey hospital building on the existing Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust site. The building is designed to allow care of emergency trauma patients and features five emergency theatres, medical imaging facilities, recovery wards and staff rest areas. To allow the hospital to treat emergency patients arriving by Air Ambulance from across the north-west a helipad is located on the rooftop. The building is designed to meet the acoustic standards set out in Health Technical Manual 08-01.

2022

11-21 Canal Reach, King's Cross

11-21 Canal Reach is a speculative office development located in the ‘Western Yards’ of the King’s Cross masterplan and has been fully let by Facebook. The development includes 38,000 sqm of modern Grade A office space over 10-12 stories. The scheme has achieved a BREEAM ‘Outstanding’ rating thanks to its sustainable design, and utilises passive design principles wherever possible. We provided a full scope of services from concept design to completion.

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2021

BAPS Manchester

The project due to complete in 2021 is a purpose-built facility to allow for BAPS’s increasing spiritual, cultural and community outreach activities in Manchester. Situated on Lees Road, Ashton-under-Lyne, the new mandir lies at the heart of the community it aims to serve. This home of Hindu worship and charity aims to bring a fresh vitality to the community through its multifarious spiritual, cultural and social activities. The new build development includes a temple for worship, multi-purpose events hall, dining facilities, priests’ quarters, teaching spaces and offices.

Intermediate Care Unit, Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust

The new intermediate care unit at Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust provides short-term accommodation to aid patient recovery to help patients return home quickly. The two-storey building provides 60 patient beds in both multi and single bed rooms. The building is designed to meet the acoustic standards set out in Health Technical Manual 08-01.

Bloom Clerkenwell, London

Bloom is an 8-storey building housing 145,000 sq ft of work, retail and amenity spaces, located directly above the new Farringdon Elizabeth line station. The acoustic design had to carefully consider the existing and new underground railway lines below the site, as well as the ventilation plant serving the Elizabeth line. The project achieved BREEAM Outstanding and WELL Platinum certification.

RCC Headquarters, Ekaterinburg

The RCC Headquarters in Ekaterinburg provides high quality cellular office spaces across a new 15-storey tower building. Two-storey modules comprise a pair of offices, stacked one on top of the other with a double-storey cladding detail. A central hallway atrium functions as a breakout space, with lounge seating and views of the city through the glazed lift shaft. At level 15 the space is top-lit to create a flexible space for company-wide gatherings and events. The design targets a BREEAM Excellent rating.

83 Barchester Street, Poplar

The 6-storey Barchester Street development includes 115 new affordable homes on the site of former industrial buildings in the Limehouse Cut Conservation Area of Poplar. The original brickwork outer cladding has been retained with a new-building housed within it, including a new saw-tooth roof extension to honour the site’s industrial heritage. The acoustic design was based on providing sound insulation standards at least 5 dB better than the minimum requirements of Approved Document E.

Apple Store, Via del Corso, Rome

This project involved the restoration and conversion of the Palazzo Marignoli in central Rome to the largest Apple Store in Europe. The acoustic strategy needed to consider the many historic artistic and architectural features within the building. The development includes large front-of-house sales spaces where building services and reverberant noise control was critical in ensuring suitable facilities. Acoustic treatments needed to be carefully and discretely integrated into the historic spaces to achieve this.

2-4 Circle Square, Manchester

Circle Square is a large-scale mixed-use scheme that includes 1,700 new homes, 1.2 million sq. ft of commercial office space and 100,000 sq. ft of ground floor retail and leisure space. Located in Manchester’s city centre Oxford Road Corridor, the development is on the former BBC site following its relocation to MediaCity in 2011. We provided acoustic design advice for two speculative office towers, retail units, and have also advised on the Cat-B fit-out of numerous floors to include co-working spaces, meeting rooms, lounges and conferencing suites.

Manchester Goods Yard, Enterprise City

Manchester Goods Yard is an £83m shell & core commercial office development in the heart of the new St Johns Enterprise City district of Manchester. The building will become the new headquarters for Booking.com, who have taken 20,000 m2 and provides workspace for up to 3,000 people. Sandy Brown have been involved with the project since master-planning in 2015, through the design, tender and construction stages. The development has been awarded a BREEAM Excellent rating and was designed by Architect Chapman Taylor and constructed by Lend Lease on behalf of Allied London.

Marleyfield House, Buckley

The £8.4m new-build extension to Marleyfield House care home completed in 2021 and doubles the number of beds from 32 to 64 and also increases communal outdoor spaces and accessibility to support residents’ well-being. Each room has personal outdoor space either through a balcony on the first floor or a patio at ground level. The extension also includes the creation of communal areas, medical facilities, visitors’ rooms, offices, extended car parking facilities and extensive sensitive landscaping.

Lampwick, Manchester Life

The Manchester Life scheme includes 213 new-build apartments at a canal side location within the popular New Islington area of the city, off Old Mill Street. In addition to the apartments, the scheme includes 300 m2 of commercial units, residential amenity spaces and car parking/cycle spaces. The Grade II Listed Ancoats Dispensary building remains adjacent to the site which is also due to be redeveloped. The aim of Manchester Life Development Company is to set a new benchmark for residential property development in Manchester that will drive the sympathetic redevelopment and refurbishment of Ancoats and New Islington into vibrant and sustainable neighbourhoods.

RHS Wisley Hilltop

The Home of Gardening Science, the UK’s first dedicated horticultural scientific centre of excellence opened its doors to the public in 2021. The new-build visitors centre and research facility includes three purpose-built laboratories that support research, a herbarium, digitisation suite, two learning studios, and a teaching garden. Rather than hiding the scientific endeavours of the RHS behind closed doors, RHS Hilltop opens up the spaces so visitors can watch on as experiments are carried out. Three new gardens were also designed by RHS Chelsea gold medal.

Lancer Square, Kensington

Lancer Square is a 13,600 sqm mixed-use scheme on Kensington Church Street which includes four blocks ranging from four to seven storeys and includes fifty-one 1-4 bedroom residential apartments, a new-build office block with retail at ground level, and a large shared basement including spa and amenity spaces. The building was designed to provide sound insulation standards at least 5 dB better than the Approved Document E standards for the apartments, and British Council for Offices standards where relevant.

Howdens Joinery

Howdens Joinery operates a number of manufacturing facilities in the UK. Sandy Brown provided acoustic design input for a new factory building in Howden Yorkshire. The new facility allows manufacturing operations to be carried out adjacent to office spaces within the same building while minimising any disturbance from noise and vibration.

General Medical Council, 3 Hardman Street

The General Medical Council operates an assessment facility within its Manchester based offices. To increase the number of assessments that could be carried out during the Covid-19 pandemic part of their offices was redeveloped to form semi-permanent assessment spaces without doors. The fit-out was designed to achieve good levels of sound insulation and speech privacy between assessment spaces despite the lack of doors.

G3 Square Glasgow

A new residential development at Finnieston in Glasgow. The development is located above railway tunnels and part of the first phase is isolated to reduce groundborne noise in the new flats. We carried out site noise and vibration surveys and specified the acoustic performance of anti-vibration isolators. We also undertook commissioning measurements inside the flats on completion to confirm the required train passby noise limits had been achieved.

Inverurie Community Campus

The new-build community campus replaces the former Inverurie Academy, St Andrew’s School, and community centre in a single development. The £56 million facility caters for 1,600 pupils and serves as a community hub. St Andrew’s School serves pupils from 3 to 18 years of age with a range of barriers to learning. The main building includes a number of atria and open-plan learning plazas with extensive sound absorbing finishes to control the transmission of sound. Box-in-box constructions are provided to the music accommodation resulting in high standards of sound insulation. As well as advise on all key aspects for compliance withBB93, we also undertook vibration monitoring during key stages of the construction to ensure no adverse impact on nearby sensitive properties.

Wellbeing Centre Edinburgh

The Wellbeing Centre is the result of the conversion of a 1970s building on Bristo Square Edinburgh to provide counselling and disability services for the University of Edinburgh. The key acoustic issue on the project was ensuring a good standard of privacy was achieved between the many adjoining counselling rooms. There were challenging aspects to this design because headroom issues within the existing building meant it was not possible to incorporate new building services ductwork to serve the spaces in either ceiling voids or raised access floor voids in the conventional way, and space for crosstalk attenuators in wall zones and behind wall linings was limited. Careful coordination was required and once the project was on-site various changes became necessary. We worked with the architect and contractor to resolve issues and tested the sound insulation before completion to check that sufficient standards were achieved.

Capital Square, Edinburgh

Capital Square is a new office development in the centre of Edinburgh. We advised on the base build, including building envelope sound insualtion and control of rooftop building services plant noise. We also advised on noise and vibration from the demolition of the previous building on the site and assisted in neighbour negotiations to agree approparite noise and vibration limits and on noise and vibration monitoring protocols.

Edinburgh Accies New Stadium & Sports Ground Redevelopment

The stadium on Raeburn Place in Stockbridge provides rugby club facilities for the Raeburn Place Foundation. The first ever international rugby game between Scotland and England was played here in 1871. We advised on the control of noise breakout from the bar and gym and assisted the architects with the acoustic design of the roof, ceilings and external facades.

Chubb, Glasgow

The fit-out of two floors of office space in Glasgow for Chubb. We worked alongside Interior Architects and Overbury, providing advice from early design to completion on this successful fit-out, which includes a mixture of small and large meeting rooms and training rooms, breakout spaces, and open plan office areas.

2020

Connah's Quay High School

The project involved the design and construction of a new two-storey school building comprising D&T, Food Tech, Art and Design and rooms for additional teaching provision and office space. The development was designed to achieve the BB93 Acoustic Design for Schools requirements and was tested pre-completion to ensure the relevant standards had been met.

JLL, Landmark Building, Manchester

Jones Lang Lasalle (JLL) relocated to the 11th floor of the Landmark building in central Manchester. The project involved the fit-out of 14,000 sq ft of offices comprising new meeting rooms, open plan-office space and staff areas. The project achieved BREEAM Excellent and WELL certification.

Achilles Therapeutics

This project involved the fit-out of a single floor of the 245 Hammersmith Road building for Achilles Therapeutics. The facilities include dedicated laboratory spaces, a boardroom, meeting rooms, open-plan office space and a staff kitchen/break area. The cellular spaces are designed to achieve high levels of sound insulation and speech privacy to enable confidential discussions to take place.

Hand & Flower House, Chelsea

This project involved the refurbishment and extension to the former Hand and Flower public house, to form five new high-end apartments and retail units at lower levels. A new-build three storey extension was also developed, forming two apartments with a glazed penthouse at roof level. The building was designed to provide sound insulation standards at least 5 dB better than the Approved Document E standards.

Sir David Bell Building, University of Roehampton

The University of Roehampton’s new digital media hub is named after media figure Sir David Bell and involved the refurbishment of existing university buildings to create a modern, adaptable learning environment. The £13m development provides students with access to state-of-the-art film studios and editing suites, newsrooms, resources for media, photography and sound production, computer facilities and a 100-seat cinema.

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Moray Sports Centre

The £8.5 million new-build sports centre in Elgin provides dedicated sports and community facilities. The building contains an 8-court games hall, a gym, fitness studios, and a cafe. Acoustic design advice was given on all key aspects of the building and a noise impact assessment was provided as part of the planning application.

Alness Academy

Completed in 2020, the £34 million development comprises a two-storey teaching block catering for 660 pupils, and a separate sports block including a games hall, gymnasium, and a swimming pool. The school features an open-plan assembly and dining space around which traditional classrooms are located. Advice was provided on all key acoustic aspects and acoustic testing was undertaken on completion.

Anaerobic digestion plant, Aberdeen

The state-of-art facility at the The Event Complex Aberdeen (TECA) opened in 2020. The facility processes collected food waste from the city to produce biogass. This is fed into the national grid and also supplies the wider TECA site and its energy centre. Solid and liquid by-products are used in agriculture. A noise impact assessment was undertaken to assess noise from all processes to the nearby dwellings. A purpose-built noise barrier and other attenuation measures mitigate the impact of noise.

Travelodge Elgin

A new-build Travelodge Hotel on the outskirts of Elgin. We carried out a site noise survey and advised on the sound insulation requirements of windows and trickle vents to achieve the Travelodge internal noise criteria. The hotel is a traditional ‘timber kit’ design and we advised on all architectural acoustics and control of building services noise. We also undertook commissioning tests on completion to verify that all relevant Traveoldge acoustic standards were achieved.

North Lanarkshire Early Years Development

Completed in 2020, the project delivered six new-build early years centres for North Lanarkshire Council. The development provides facilities for up to 360 early years places across the region. Key acoustic requirements included sound insulation from the main open-plan play areas to the adjacent rooms, and the control of noise build-up throughout.

ARM Glasgow

The fit-out of two floors of office space at St Vincent Plaza Glasgow for ARM Holdings. The floors are mainly open-plan modern collaborative areas, but the few enclosed spaces provide a high level of privacy. Due to the complexity of introducing full height partitions into the existing space, the sound insulation is provided by upgraded plasterboard ceilings acting as sound insulating ‘lids’.

Apple Store, Marina Bay Sands

Apple Marina Bay Sands includes a 30-metre diameter dome which is fully glazed and surrounded by water. The main front of house retail space is accommodated within the glazed dome and this allows for panoramic views of the entire marina and the city skyline through the large panes of curved glass. The dome features an array of fabric baffles that spiral around the perimeter, which provide both solar shading and acoustic control within the store. Access to the dome is via a bridge to the boardwalk, and also via an underwater avenue tunnel from the Marina Bay Sands shopping mall.

Kampus

Bringing a forgotten part of the city back to life, KAMPUS is a new neighbourhood by Capital & Centric and Henry Boot Developments located at the former Manchester Metropolitan University campus. The canal-side transformation is a celebration of the vibrancy and diversity of Manchester: a new cultural spot for the city complete with contemporary homes and independent shops, restaurants, bars and cafes.

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Project Decade

2010 - 19

2019

Centralised Science Labs, Keele University

The Central Science Labs at Keele University provide 5,300 m2 of modern, co-located science laboratories and brings together practical teaching across a range of disciplines. A bespoke acoustic design was provided to facilitate multiple classes to be taught within the same open floor plate laboratory.

Hilton Garden Inn, Smithfield, Stoke on Trent

As part of the Smithfield masterplan in the heart of Stoke-on-Trent, the Hilton Garden Inn provides 140 bedrooms along with a ground floor restaurant and amenity spaces. The acoustic design of the scheme meets the Hilton Brand Standards which are an enhancement of the building Regulations ADE2003, meaning a better reduction in noise transfer between adjacent bedrooms.

Bonded Warehouse, Manchester

The Bonded Warehouse has been heavily refurbished and reconfigured to provide 128,000 sq ft of offices, workspaces, studios, retail spaces and event spaces for small to medium sized businesses. Originally built in the 1860s, it was a railway terminus linking Manchester and Liverpool. Much of the Grade II Listed building has been retained, along with the charm and heritage aspects of the building. Detailed acoustic testing was carried out during the planning phase to inform how multiple uses and tenants could comfortably operate together.

General Medical Council, 3 Hardman Square

The General Medical Council expanded the assessment facilities nearby in 3 Hardman Street, to provide a Cat-B fit-out of 20,000 sq ft of assessment and office space on the 8th floor of 3 Hardman Square. The project targeted specific sound insulation and speech privacy criteria to enable the rigorous assessment process carried out.

PJT Partners, One Curzon Street, London

PJT Partners has expanded its London offices to provide a Cat-B fit-out of 21,000 sq ft of new meeting rooms, offices and a communal event area.

Superbowl, Golden Square, Warrington

The acoustic design included a bespoke light-weight bowling lane isolation strategy. It was not possible to provide a floated concrete slab to the unit due to weight limitations associated with the existing structure. Structure-borne noise and vibration transfer associated with the bowling activities to the retail unit below needed to be controlled to an acceptable level. Mock-up acoustic testing was carried out on a sample of the bowling lane with different isolator products to allow the most effective solution to be determined and specified.

Frederick Douglass Centre, Newcastle University

The Frederick Douglass Centre at Newcastle University is a £34 million flagship development forming
part of the Newcastle Helix scheme (formerly known as Science Central). The building functions as a teaching and learning facility in honour of the US anti-slavery campaigner, who was accommodated nearby the Helix site. The modern learning facilities cater for up to 2,200 students across three floors including an auditorium and collaborative lecture theatre, plus a range of seminar rooms on upper floors.

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Clore Music Studios, New College, University of Oxford

Oxford University’s Clore Music Studios opened its doors in summer 2019 and features a double-height rehearsal space on the ground floor within a 3 storey solid stone structure. Two studios dedicated to chamber music rehearsal sit on the upper floors alongside four other practice rooms. The contemporary building is connected to the neighbouring Savile House by way of a glazed atrium extending into the partially sunk ground floor rehearsal studio, and subsequently providing a direct visual connection to the street.

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ABC Manchester

The ABC Buildings are a mixed-use development remodelled from the 1960s Astley & Byrom House which was originally designed by Leach Rhodes Walker. Maintaining the ‘brutalist’ architectural style, the buildings form part of the £1.35bn Enterprise City – a cluster of workspaces targeted at film, TV, media and tech companies which ‘seek a presence in the city centre’.
The development includes an Everyman 3 screen cinema and bar; The Farm recording/media studios which feature Dolby sound studio suites, a Barry’s Bootcamp gym, speculative offices, retail spaces and rooftop amenity terrace area.

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The Royal Central College of Speech and Drama

The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama opened the latest phase of its redevelopment at the Swiss Cottage campus in early 2019, expanding a single-story site to twelve stories, two of which are positioned underground.
Founded in 1906 at the Royal Albert Hall, the School moved to the Embassy Theatre in 1956 and it is upon this historic site that it continues to grow, consolidating teaching, rehearsal and performance space, including five new studios and a courtyard theatre.

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Frederick Douglass Centre, Newcastle University

The Frederick Douglass Centre at Newcastle University is a £34 million flagship development forming part of the Newcastle Helix scheme (formerly known as Science Central). The building functions as a teaching and learning facility in honour of the US anti-slavery campaigner, who was accommodated nearby the Helix site.

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Tocumen Airport, Panama

Tocumen Airport is the international airport of Panama. In 2012, a project to build a new south terminal began, designed to provide a further 20 gates with full check-in, arrival and baggage handling facilities.
By 2022, it is anticipated that the new gate will have increased the airport’s capacity from 5.8 million to 18 million passengers.

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Apple Stores

Sandy Brown has advised on the acoustic design for many Apple stores across the world, working in collaboration with Foster and Partners.
To date we have advised on over 30 stores internationally. These include stores in historical buildings and on new-build sites.

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2018

Hafod Y Gest, Porthmadog

Hafod Y Gest is a modern retirement housing complex located in the Welsh coastal town of Porthmadog. The scheme provides 40 flats of different sizes with extensive communal facilities for residents.

The Silver Fin Building

Completed in 2017, the £35 million development provides 130,000 sqft of grade A speculative office accommodation in the centre of Aberdeen. We advised on all key acoustic issues including facade sound insulation, requirements for sound absorbing finishes, and the control of internal and external noise from building services systems. Acoustic testing was undertaken on completion to demonstrate compliance with the requirements of BREEAM.

St John's Primary School

The new-build primary school and early years centre, built on the site of the former Portobello High School, was completed in 2018 for a value of £10.8 million. In day-to-day uses, the classrooms are open to the common breakout areas but the provision of movable partitions allows the spaces to be closed-off. We advised on all key aspects to meet the requirements of BB93, including the control of sound insulation and the provision of sound absorbing room finishes.

Higgs Centre for Innovation

Located at the UK Astronomy Technology Centre’s Royal Observatory in Edinburgh, the £12 million new-build development provides purpose-built facilities for start-up technology companies. The facilities include clean rooms, a vibration testing laboratory, offices, and meeting spaces. A key requirement on the project was the control of noise from the shaker table used for vibration testing to adjacent sensitive areas. High standards of control were achieved by the specified constructions.

Edgbaston Park Hotel and Conference Centre

Edgbaston Park Hotel and Conference Centre is based at the prestigious University of Birmingham, one of the world’s top 100 institutions. The aim was to create a central conferencing hub that captures the enticing contrast of a vibrant city with a peaceful leafy location within a conservation park. The striking modern buildings contain state-of-the-art conference spaces with impressive flexibility and sleek audio-visual technology.

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Marlborough Primary School

The complete reconstruction of the former Victorian era building cleverly maximises the site to provide five tiered levels of classrooms and play spaces around interlocking light wells. Key acoustic issues included noise ingress to the school development via open windows, sound insulation of the walls and floors within the tightly arranged and interlinked layout, and control of reverberation throughout.

The project formed part of a wider regeneration project in South Kensington, London, that also encompassed redevelopment of the adjacent Clearings warehouses for residential.

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South London Theatre, Old Fire Station

The South London Theatre, in the London Borough of Lambeth, is an amateur dramatic society that has been working for than 40 years and produces more than 20 shows a year, comprising various genres. A converted Victorian fire station originally built in 1881, it was redesigned by the architect Owen Luder and partially converted into a theatre in 1967. Listed as a Grade II building, it has a proscenium stage and 96 seats for the public. The project completely reorganised the layout of the theatre and its support spaces, providing a new ground level extension. The opportunity was taken to greatly improve the sound insulation and internal acoustics performance.

Chesham Data Centre

The data centre, designed for Project Matterhorn, covers two buildings. Each has a total area of just over 35,000 sq. metres. Each data centre is a two-storey building with mechanical and electrical plant on the ground floor and three individual data halls at first floor level.
Chillers and generators are located in a two-storey plant compound at the front of the building.

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Belfast campus, University of Ulster

Three new buildings adjacent to the existing Belfast campus building in the up-and-coming Cathedral Quarter. The main building contains art and design workshops, engineering test facilities, including an anechoic chamber, bio-medical facilities, lecture theatres and a learning resources centre.

2017

Wilburn Basin, Salford

Wilburn Basin is a residential development that provides high quality accommodation a stone’s throw away from Manchester city centre. The development provides 491 three, two and one-bedroom apartments, townhouses and garden apartments along with 7,500 sq ft of commercial floor space at street level across four apartment blocks ranging in height from 8, 10, 13 and 21 storeys.

One Regent, Manchester

One Regent is a residential development that provides high quality accommodation on the edge of Manchester city centre. The scheme comprises 6 town houses and 301 apartments over 26 storeys.

Sport Scotland Inverclyde

Sportscotland National Training Centre Inverclyde opened in 2017 following a major £12 million redevelopment. The facilities include grass pitches, a multi-sport hall, floodlit all-weather and indoor 3G surfaces, a fitness suite with performance area, fully equipped meeting rooms and 60 residential rooms. All areas and facilities have been designed to provide full accessibility. The redevelopment has received multiple awards, including a commendation for delivery of “an inclusive residential facility with sport at its heart.” The project successfully linked new and existing facilities, joining double-height sports halls with the six-storey residential block.

Travelodge Inverness

The conversion of the Ballantyne House office block in the centre of Inverness to provide a new Travelodge Hotel.

Boroughmuir High School

Completed in 2017, the new-build high school located in the Fountainbridge area of Edinburgh serves 1,165 pupils. The school features a large atrium around which traditional classrooms and flexible breakout areas are located. The constrained site means the external MUGA pitch is located on the roof of the building. Design advice was provided on all key acoustic issues for compliance with the requirements of BB93.

No 1 Spinningfields

One Spinningfields is a mixed use office, leisure and retail development at the heart of Manchester’s prominent Spinningfields business district.
260,000 square feet of Grade A office space sits on top of a seven storey podium building and is topped with a rooftop terrace bar and restaurant that provides panoramic views of the city centre.

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Goldsmith's Hall, London

Sandy Brown’s initial proposal for this Grade I listed building was to specify a suitable loudspeaker system for one of their function rooms used for dining, conferences and events. Their existing system was particularly dated and they had a number of problems related to speech intelligibility through the system and across the space whilst the system was being used. As the hall has a particularly ornate interior design and is protected by English heritage there was a limitation in what we could specify to improve the acoustics of the space.
We modelled the hall and considered a number of loudspeaker systems, in the end we concluded a beam steering loudspeaker system was suitable, whereby sound is angled down towards the audience without exciting the space.

Bloomberg London

Sandy Brown is proud to have contributed to the design of the new European headquarters for Bloomberg LP. Located in the heart of the City of London, the new 3.2-acre site comprises two linked buildings which provide approximately 1.1 million square feet of office and retail space.

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1 Newhall Street, Birmingham

1 Newhall Street provides modern, Grade A office accommodation with ground floor retail space.
The building, formally known as Phoenix House, occupies a prime location in the heart of Birmingham’s business district.
This renovation and fit out of the 12 storey building increased the floorplates of the office accommodation by extending to the rear of the site. At the front, the building was re-clad with a new glass facade to increase the amount of natural light and create a more contemporary entrance to the offices. New heating and cooling systems were added along with new lifts and M&E.
Alongside the office space, the 50,000 sq. foot development provides secure parking, cycle storage and shower and change facilities. The development also provides a large ground floor retail unit.

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Spire Manchester Hospital

Spire Healthcare is a leading private hospital group.
Their flagship hospital in Didsbury, South Manchester, includes outpatient and inpatient facilities, six operating theatres, intensive therapy unit and hydrotherapy facilities. There is also a hybrid theatre and 150-seat education centre contained within the development.

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XYZ, Manchester

XYZ is an office development located on Hardman Boulevard in the Spinningfields business district of Manchester.

The development includes 22,000 sqm of office space over seven floor levels with optional shell, Cat A or bespoke specification. It contains a managed entrance hub which includes a lobby, business lounge and restaurant space at ground floor level. A gym is located in the basement and an event space is included on the 7th floor.

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Al Khozama Conference Centre Hotel

A redevelopment of the existing Al Khozama Centre in Riyadh to form a new luxury hotel with function spaces, spa area and restaurants as well as guestrooms and suites. The site is adjacent to the existing Al Khozama Hotel and connected to the neighbouring Al Faisaliah complex via a link bridge. Acoustically, the key challenges were to ensure that acoustic standards for luxury hotel use could be achieved whilst considering the limitations of the existing structure, and to control reverberation in the large central atrium thereby avoiding excessive noise transfer to guest areas which open onto it.

Storyhouse - Chester Cultural Centre

Redevelopment and extension of a Grade II listed Art Deco former cinema to create a cultural centre containing an 800 seat theatre, a library, cafe and 100-seat art-house cinema. The development is situated in Chester’s area of archaeological importance within the Roman fortress and medieval city.

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Enderby Wharf, Greenwich

Redevelopment of a river front brownfield site on the Greenwich Peninsula to include an international cruise liner terminal, 770 apartments and a 251 room hotel with conference facilities.

2016

Erskine Stewart's Melville Junior School

The extension and alteration to the existing Reid House provides a home for ESMS’s music department and a new reception area. The building includes a group music rehearsal room, practice rooms, and teaching classrooms. We advised on the control of music between the spaces, requirements for sound absorbing and diffusing room surfaces, and the control of noise from building services systems.

West Hampstead Square

West Hampstead Square is a mixed-use development located on a former brownfield site in the vibrant and affluent north-west neighbourhood of the same name.
The new build contains 198 new apartments comprised of private and affordable housing, commercial retail units ranging from five to twelve stories, office units and 2600 sq. ft. of leisure space.

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Barrow Hedges Primary School

Sandy Brown provided acoustic advice on the extension of Barrow Hedges Primary School, in Sutton.
The project included a refurbished main hall for assemblies, additional classrooms for SEN children and specialist rooms for music teaching. Most of the new areas were designed to be naturally ventilated, which also implied enhancements to the existing fabric of the school.

Theatres and Tumour Unit, RJAH

The Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (RJAH) is a leading orthopaedic centre of excellence. Located in Oswestry, Shropshire, the hospital provides a range of musculoskeletal surgical, medical and rehabilitation services.
This project, for the development of a new theatre ward and tumour out-patient department, added four new clean-air theatres, a high dependency unit, an admission-on-day-of-surgery unit and a ten bed ward to the hospital’s facilities.

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Google, 6 Pancras Square

Google’s office at 6 Pancras Square in London provides 350,000 sq feet of office accommodation over 11 floors.
Comprising office areas, a fully functional gym, restaurants, serveries, meeting rooms, along with highly sensitive spaces such as a Town Hall and provision of three state-of-the-art recording studios for YouTube and other social and relaxation space, the building is able to accommodate over 2,000 members of staff.

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Portobello High School

The new Portobello High School is Edinburgh’s largest school, with capacity for 1,400 students.

Levenmouth Academy

Levenmouth Academy is a new £45m school with the capacity for 1800 students and 200 staff. Sandy Brown provided a full acoustic consultancy service from design through to completion.

Shetland Gas Plant

The Shetland Gas Plant is said to be capable of supplying energy to two million homes and was the biggest construction project in the UK since the London Olympics. Sandy Brown were engaged to advise on the designs of the administration building, gatehouse, and workshop / warehouse. The administration building contains acoustically sensitive spaces such as emergency response rooms, as well as large meeting rooms and offices. Our acoustic engineers provided support to the design team, answering queries arising from site, and carried out acoustic commissioning testing on completion to demonstrate that the building achieved compliance with the required standards.

Airbus UK

Airbus is a multi-national aircraft manufacturer. It is also a world leader in wing design, engineering and manufacture.
Its site in Broughton, North Wales is responsible for assembling the wings for all Airbus civil aircraft, including those for the world’s largest passenger airliner, the A380.
With over 6,000 staff located at the Broughton factory, it is estimated that over 1,000 wings per year are produced.

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Liverpool FC Anfield Stadium

Anfield has been the home turf of Liverpool FC since their formation in 1892.
The expansion of the Main Stand formed part of a wider regeneration of the Anfield area. The project began in 2014 increase its capacity from 12,200 to 20,500 to make it the largest capacity single stand in the country.

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Tottenham Hotspur FC Training Facilities

Spurs’ new training centre on the 77 acre Bulls Cross site provides the highest quality playing, training and medical facilities for its first team squad and youth academy. The main building features an 80 x 50m ETFE covered artificial pitch at its heart.
Covering 67 acres, there are 11 outdoor pitches as well as the two-storey training centre with medical facilities, swimming / hydrotherapy pool, fitness centre, changing rooms and a media centre.

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Cambridge Street

Cambridge Street is a residential development that provides high quality accommodation in Manchester city centre. It is a worthy addition to the city’s skyline and is the next phase in the ongoing regeneration of the area.
The development contains 282 apartments with 1,700 square feet of commercial space and a split level car park on the ground floor. Situated between Whitworth Street West and the Mancunian Way, residences are split into two blocks – one of 28 storeys and another of 21 storeys.
Near to Oxford Road station, the site is within close proximity to busy rail lines with passenger and freight traffic, a busy inner ring road and a major bus corridor.

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Sheikh Jaber Al Ahmad Cultural Centre

Sheikh Jaber Al Ahmad Cultural Centre is made up of four connected buildings that together create a home to showcase the performing arts in Kuwait. It forms the focal point of Kuwait’s new national cultural district.
Featuring a theatre centre, music centre, conference centre and a national library,the development includes a 2,000 seat theatre, 1,000 seat concert hall, 350 seat recital hall, multi-purpose function room and a 400 seat cinema. In addition to the main theatre, there is also a 600 seat theatre, a studio theatre and many rehearsal and support facilities.

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Opera House Dubai

The Opera House Dubai is an innovative privately funded performing arts centre which is set to become one of the most significant, vibrant and successful entertainment venues in in the Middle East.
The 2,000 seat, multi-purpose theatre features variable acoustics and layouts that make it a suitable space for opera, musicals, ballet and dance performances and drama productions as well as conferences and functions.
Movable risers are used to change the stalls floor from raked seating to flat floor and rotating side balconies are used to change the shape of the auditorium between theatre and concert modes. An acoustic shell is used to close off the fly tower and form an orchestral stage for concert mode. The design uses reflectors along walls and overhead to enhance the natural acoustics of the venue and shallow balcony overhangs to ensure all parts of the audience are acoustically immersed in performances.

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Cannon House

Cannon House on Priory Queensway, Birmingham provides offices for the Energy Systems Catapult. The offices were designed as a hub for the energy industry that will facilitate and enhance innovation and create new opportunities for growth and collaboration. Working with Monteith Scott Architects, Sandy Brown provided the acoustic design for the offices redevelopment. Audio demonstrations were provided during the design process to help the client and wider design team appreciate the impact of acoustic decisions.

The Avenues Phase 4

The Avenues is Kuwait’s largest leisure destination. Spread over an area of 301,000 sq. metres, the mall has over 800 stores and services, 10 anchors, and a parking capacity for 10,000 vehicles. The design of the 1st Avenue and 2nd Avenue reflect the natural lines of the Arabian desert, whereas the new districts are inspired by some of the oldest cities in the world. The Avenues comprises six distinct districts that include The Mall, The Grand Avenue, SoKu, The Bazaar, Luxury Mall and The Souk. These new districts will connect to earlier phases of The Avenues through a series of courtyard plazas. Sandy Brown carried out comprehensive acoustic modelling of the districts to establish the likely acoustic quality experienced by visitors to the mall.

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New Adelphi Building, University of Salford

Accommodation for the University of Salford’s Schools of Art, Performance and Music. It contains five professional standard recording studios, a TV studio, two radio studios, 33 music tutorial/rehearsal rooms, 10 drama & dance performance spaces and a 400 seat black box theatre.

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VietinBank Business Centre

Mixed-use development comprising two towers connected by a seven storey podium building containing conference facilities, luxury shops, cafes and restaurants. The taller tower, at 68 storeys, provides a new headquarters for VietinBank, one of Vietnam’s largest banking groups. The second, 48-storey tower, houses a five-star hotel, spa and serviced apartments

SBK (Blue) Line stations

Seven stations on the Sungai Buloh-Kajang (SBK) Line extending south of the city. The stations include three underground stations at Pasar Rakyat, Cochrane and Maluri and four elevated stations at Taman Bukit Ria, Taman Bukit Mewah, Leisure Mall and Plaza Phoenix.

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2015

Cobalt Place

Cobalt Place forms part of the redevelopment of the Saint John Bosco College site in Battersea, London. The buildings are arranged to form a residential quarter with a central court space, a new community amenity that opens new views to the neighbouring Sacred Heart church. This is one of the first UK residential structures built out of cross-laminated timber (CLT). This durable structural material has the potential to save on energy costs due to its compact wood layers allowing only half the air leakage of concrete, which reduces the amount of energy needed to heat the building by 40 percent.

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The BioHub Birmingham

This three storey laboratory and business outreach building is a serviced biomedical laboratory providing entrepreneurs, innovative start-ups and micro-businesses with access to affordable laboratory equipment and facilities. The hub is located in the Birmingham Research Park, which is a joint venture between the University of Birmingham and Birmingham City Council, and includes start-up space in the laboratories, then room for growth in serviced office space and meeting rooms on the upper floors. Facilities include high specification laboratories with dark room, tissue culture labs and microbiology lab as well as extensive shared laboratory equipment.

Sandy Brown provided a full acoustic consulting service including guidance on a strategy to meet BREEAM criteria along with commissioning testing to ensure compliance. The location was directly adjacent to a train line, so surveys and assessments of the effects of vibration and noise on the building were key to ensuring the laboratory facilities could function. As the building houses many varying functions, both noisy and noise sensitive, it was important to provide suitable sound insulation between them all, and suitably quiet mechanical services.

Christ Church Spitalfields

Christ Church in Spitalfields is an operational church in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The Grade I listed building was completed in 1729 and is widely regarded as a masterpiece of English Baroque architecture. The redevelopment of the crypt allowed the space to be opened to the public for the first time in the Church’s 300 year history.

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UBM Head Office

When moving their London headquarters to a new location, UBM were looking to build an efficient and flexible workspace that represented the creative ethos of the organisation and provided state of the art office management capabilities.
The building’s distinctive angular shape makes maximum use of natural light and provides a 360-degree panoramic view of London. The office has achieved a BREEAM excellent standard and in 2015 became the second highest LEED-CI project in the UK.

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Annan House, Aberdeen

Annan House, located in the centre of Aberdeen, provides 120,000 ft2 of offices for EnQuest, a leading North Sea Oil company.

Glasgow University Stevenson Building Extension

A new £13m sports and social facility. The project involved the demolition of the existing GUU ‘Hive’ building, and formation of an extension of the existing Stevenson building and internal refurbishment of the existing GUU building.

Theatre Royal, Glasgow

Home of the Scottish Opera, the Theatre Royal is Glasgow’s oldest theatre. It was originally opened in 1867, which also makes it the longest-running theatre in Scotland.
This lottery funded project included remodelling and refurbishment of the original category A listed auditorium and construction of a new foyer to provide a more accessible and welcoming experience for the theatre’s visitors.
Within the striking new extension there is a new box office and cafe area, education space and heritage exhibition space. Complementing the foyer’s hospitality areas, there is also an external roof terrace that provides panoramic views across the city.
The project has been recognised with a number of honours including a Design Award from the Glasgow Institute of Architects and an RIAS Culture award.

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Bolton Town Hall

Bolton Town Hall is over 150 years old and is designated as a Grade II listed building by English Heritage.
The redevelopment and refurbishment of this imposing landmark included the creation of large open-plan office space, upgrades to the infrastructure to improve the working environment and improved facilities. By creating extra space the council was able to dispose of surplus properties yet accommodate double the number of staff.
Alongside the initial renovation project, Sandy Brown was also asked to provide acoustic advice on the One Stop Shop area, where self-service computer terminals allow council customers to complete their own transactions online or attend drop-in appointments.
Key acoustic design requirements included achieving suitable indoor ambient noise levels in the office space, an appropriate level of speech privacy / sound insulation between noise sensitive rooms such as PODs and meeting rooms and ensuring that the reverberation time in the various spaces was suitable for use.

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Five Pancras Square

Five Pancras Square is the headquarters of the London Borough of Camden. It is also a community building and alongside the office accommodation there are two public swimming pools, a fitness centre, a library and the council’s customer access centre.
The building is one of the greenest in the UK. A condition of the planning policy was that the project achieved a BREEAM Excellent rating, but with a score of 97.6 per cent the completed development exceeded this and was awarded the Outstanding accreditation instead.
In 2015 the building was named as the winner of the Prime Minister’s Better Building Award.

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Manchester City FC Etihad Stadium

Now home to Manchester City Football Club, the stadium was originally built to host the 2002 Commonwealth Games.
The expansion of the Etihad created the third largest stadium in the English Premier League, increasing capacity from 48,000 to over 55,000 by expanding the South Stand with a third tier. The new stand also includes a corporate lounge area with a 450 seat restaurant and sports bars. Outside the football season the stadium is one of the UK’s largest music venues with a maximum capacity of 60,000 for performances.
The stadium has a bowl design and is totally enclosed. The virtually identical stands on either side of the pitch include a row of executive boxes that run across the stands between the second and third tiers and there are two large video screens in opposite corners of the ground.

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Trafalgar Place

Trafalgar Place is a flagship housing development which forms part of the regeneration of Elephant and Castle. Conceived to improve inner city-living and help address London’s chronic housing shortage, 25 per cent of the project provides affordable housing and a key aspect of the scheme was to improve public realm spaces.
On the site of the demolished Heygate Estate, Trafalgar Place has provided 235 new homes. The seven buildings that make up the scheme are a mixture of mini towers, apartment blocks and town houses that range between four and ten storeys and each home has been provided with a garden, roof terrace or balcony as external amenity space.
Described as ‘leading the way in innovative design’ by London’s former Mayor Boris Johnson*, the gardens are just one of the sustainability features that have been built into Trafalgar Place. For example, two of the buildings have a cross-laminated timber structure, which marked a new endeavour for the developer in the UK.
Among the accolades for the development are the Housing Design Award at the Bricks Awards and both Best New Place to Live and the Mayor’s Award for Planning Excellence at the London Planning Awards.

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Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts

Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA) is a specialist centre for creative and performing arts higher education. The institute was founded by Sir Paul McCartney – its lead patron – and Mark Featherstone Witty who also founded the BRIT school. Opened by Her Majesty the Queen in 1996, LIPA is based in what was once Sir Paul McCartney’s old school, the Liverpool Institute for Boys.
In 2014 a major development began to expand teaching accommodation and performing spaces by adding a second venue. Extensive refurbishment and restoration of the Grade II listed building at 68 Hope Street has added a 120-seat studio theatre, a 200-seat lecture theatre, four dance studios and spaces for workshops, seminars and classrooms. Once the art school of fellow Beatle John Lennon, the two buildings are now linked by a new annexe building and atrium.

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Bridgewater College, McMillan Theatre

A stand-alone building containing a 350 seat auditorium, performance/dance studio, classrooms and cafe for the use of the college and the community.

Lyric Theatre Hammersmith Reuben Foundation Wing

The theatre’s facilities doubled in size by developing the podium site adjacent to the existing building, to provide Britain’s first teaching theatre for 14- to 19-year-olds. The new facilities include rehearsal studios for dance, film and theatre as well as a recording studio, practice rooms, and a 60-seat cinema.

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Greenwich Millennium Village, Phases 3, 4 and 5

Greenwich Millennium Village is a large scale residential scheme that provides 2,800 homes and commercial space over five major phases on a 72 acre site at the southern end of the Greenwich Peninsula. Located on the banks of the Thames River, the community is built around a man-made lake, village green and an Ecology Park.
Greenwich Millennium Village received a CEEQUAL Whole Project Award in 2013 and, in the same year, was a finalist for the Housing Design Award.

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Weston Library, University of Oxford

The Weston Library was formerly known as the New Bodleian Library. The original Grade II listed building, designed by Giles Gilbert Scott and completed in 1940, houses the library’s extensive collection of books, manuscripts, papers and journals across 11 floors. The project includes a major reconstruction and upgrade to existing collections’ storage and handling of books, opening up of the building to allow public access and engagement in activities within, a new conservation centre, a digital media study suite, new reading rooms, facilities for visiting fellows and spaces for social and intellectual interaction. In 2016 the library was shortlisted to receive the Stirling Prize.

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Heart of East Greenwich

The regeneration of the former Greenwich District Hospital site provides a mixed use development of 645 family homes. The Greenwich Centre also includes community facilities with a library, leisure centre, council service centre, and a health centre. A new public square and retail areas are also part of the design to create a landmark destination and vibrant community hub.

Exhibition Centre Liverpool

This centre is designed to host national and international trade and consumer exhibitions, sporting events and occasional concerts. It includes an integrated 200 room hotel with a high performance acoustically rated facade. A covered bridge connects the centre to the Liverpool Arena and Convention Centre.

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Dr D Y Patil University

The ten-storey international business school is an integrated, sustainable, vertical campus providing high quality living and learning spaces for approximately 2000 students and 200 staff. The various elements are interconnected clusters, grouped around communal courtyards. The building’s first four storeys house the academic activities of the school while the upper five levels provide residential accommodation for faculty members and students. Facilities include lecture theatres, seminar rooms and other highly flexible space for a variety of lectures, cultural and leisure events.

2014

The Royal College of Pathologists

The Royal College of Pathologists is a charity with a Royal Charter (received in 1970) and its patron is Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
Occupying a 30,000 sq. ft site in the centre of London, the new headquarters contain an open plan office, meeting rooms, auditorium and deluxe seminar spaces designed to enhance the learning experience.

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Primal Gym, Leeds

Primal Gym is a ‘Leeds Dock success story’, proudly located in the heart of the city’s key destination
for enterprise, community and culture. The innovative gym houses
Olympic-level lifting activities, an indoor running and an array of alternative gym equipment.

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Stowe Music School

Stowe School in Buckinghamshire is a co-educational boarding and day school for pupils aged 13-18.

The development of new music facilities saw a purpose-built two storey building added to the school’s estate opposite the Roxburgh Theatre. The brief was to create a building entirely in keeping with the grandeur and beauty of the historic school, but which would house state-of-the-art music performance, rehearsal and recording space.

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Springfield Primary School, Sale

Springfield Primary School is a local authority school in Sale, Trafford. Located close to the town centre, the original building was constructed in 1905, but had become unfit for purpose and was unable to accommodate the number of students wishing to attend.
The new build extension included the addition of junior classrooms, group rooms, staff rooms and offices, a plant room and a learning resource centre.
As a non-designated heritage asset, the original period features of the traditional school were maintained, including octagonal chimneys and terracotta entrance portals

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Chiltern Firehouse

The Chiltern Firehouse is a conversion of a Grade II listed Fire Station along with a new build extension to create a unique 26 suite luxury hotel in Marylebone. The Manchester Square Fire Station was originally constructed in 1889.
For its transformation into a luxury five star hotel, the fire station was completely rebuilt whilst respecting the historic, listed elements of the building.

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GDF Suez Aberdeen

The new GDF Suez office in Aberdeen provides 40,000ft2 of office space. On this project our Edinburgh team provided a full acoustic consultancy service for the base-build and Cat A fit-out, which included undertaking environmental noise and vibration surveys at the site, support through the planning process and specification of the facade sound insulation performance. Our London team provided detailed design advice on the fit-out, advising on inter-area sound insulation inside and on the acoustic quality in meeting rooms and office areas. Our understanding and considerable experience of working for both developers and end clients (and their respective design teams) meant that we were able to help to deliver an office building which high acoustic standards throughout.

Tain Health Centre

The design of a new health centre.

Forres Health Centre

The design of a new health centre.

Woodside Health Centre

The design of a new health centre.

The Forth Replacement Crossing Contact and Education Centre

The Contact and Education Centre is located in South Queensferry overlooking the Firth of Forth. It is used to provide a variety of events for the public, such as exhibitions and educational information about the new Queensferry Crossing. The building also contains a new traffic control room which is separated from the main exhibition space by a large high performance glazed screen. This provides a visual connection between the spaces but is designed to ensure that the sensitive nature of the control room’s activities are entirely inaudible in the exhibition space.

Hillsborough Inquest Court

This project created one of the largest courtroom spaces in Europe to house inquests into the Hillsborough disaster.
By converting the ground floor of an open plan office shell at Birchwood Business Park, a high specification court was developed that has seating for 286 members of the public and 92 advocates. Totalling close to 5,000 sq. metres, the entire court facility incorporates a 1,300 sq. metre courtroom, 14 confidential consultation rooms, a public waiting area with a seating capacity of 72 and a 304 sq. metre court annex that provides an additional 99 seats.
The facility, which was designed to meet with HMCTS acoustic requirements, was named as the winner of the award for Innovation in Partnering from the PPC / TPC Annual Awards 2014. It was also shortlisted for the North West Regional Construction Awards in 2015.

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Harvard Art Museums

Harvard Art Museums is a leading centre for research and teaching in visual arts, dedicated to furthering education at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is comprised of three separate museums – the Fogg Museum, Busch-Reisinger Museum and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum – which, as part of this project, united their collections under one roof for the first time in their more than 100 year history.
During the renovation the design of the historically registered original building was carefully preserved, while a newer extension was replaced to add considerable extra exhibition space and art restoration laboratories. Building services were completely modernised, incorporating a range of sustainable design solutions, which helped the building gain the LEED Gold Certification.

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National Library of Latvia

This landmark 13-storey building of glass and stainless-steel rises as a ‘Castle of Light’ along the Daugava River in Riga’s city centre. It houses over six million titles and contains an auditorium, restoration laboratory and audio studios as well as exhibition, events and conference facilities, all arranged around a large central atrium.

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Waters Corporation Headquarters

Mass spectrometry is used to identify and quantify chemical components in complex mixtures. It is a very sensitive analytical technique, enabling scientists to confidently measure components or contaminants present at levels well below a millionth of a gram. This development unites Waters’ existing mass spectrometry operations located on four separate sites in south Manchester. The facilities include state-of-the-art customer demonstration laboratories, research and development laboratories and manufacturing areas.

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The 'Walkie-Talkie' - 20 Fenchurch Street

More commonly referred to as the Walkie-Talkie, this 38 storey Grade A office building in the heart of the City includes a spectacular Sky Garden offering views across the capital. A separate annex building provides retail space, a cafe and motorcycle/bicycle parking.

Stockwell Street Building, University of Greenwich

The Stockwell Street campus for the University of Greenwich houses the School of Architecture, Design, and Construction along with library facilities, lecture theatres, TV studios, and a sound recording studio and editing suite. The School of Architecture, Design and Construction centres around a large open plan studio space, allowing students from many disciplines to develop their creative and professional skills. The library is a focus for everyone on campus, supporting flexible teaching, creative learning, research and enterprise. It offers staff and students an attractive, modern and flexible environment in which to study.

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University of Birmingham Biomedical Innovation Hub

This three storey laboratory and business outreach building located in the Birmingham Research Park (a joint venture between the University of Birmingham and Birmingham City Council), is a serviced biomedical laboratory providing entrepreneurs, innovative start-ups and microbusinesses with access to affordable laboratory facilities and equipment.

JTI Headquarters, Geneva

A landmark international headquarters in the centre of Geneva, for Japan Tobacco International. The geometric shaped building with its quilted skin glazed curtain wall facade encloses a central courtyard and includes an auditorium, conference facilities and restaurant and a day-care centre.

Oxford Brookes University, John Henry Brookes Building

The project redevelops the existing Abercrombie building and adds a major new building, the Student Services Centre, housing a large library, 1200 seat event space, lecture theatre, pooled teaching areas, food hall, cafe, galleries, retail, office and administrative areas, all surrounding an atrium forum. Key acoustic issues were the control of break-out of plant and activity noise to neighbours, providing the library’s numerous study/resource areas with varying acoustic characters, and controlling noise between the many varied building uses. Where feasible, spaces were allowed to remain open to each other to better provide a sense of hub community in the building tempered with sound absorbing finishes to reduce excess noise.

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Newington

A 44-storey iconic tower on the site of the former London Park Hotel providing 470 residential flats with a new public square, cafes and a new community theatre that is home to the Southwark Playhouse. Facilities include a 200-seat auditorium, dedicated education studio foyers and ancillary offices.

Molineux Stadium redevelopment

A phased expansion of Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club’s Molineux Stadium to take the seated capacity of the stadium from 28,500 to 37,500. Phase 1 covered the demolition of Stan Cullins (North) stand and construction of a new two tier stand. Phase 2 consists of demolition of Steve Bull (East) stand to make way for a new two tier stand. Phases 3 and 4 include redevelopment of the Jack Harris and Billy Wright stands.

Masdar Institute of Science and Technology

The Masdar Institute of Science and Technology (MIST), developed with the support and cooperation of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), is a research-oriented university that is focused on alternative energy, sustainability and the environment. Emphasis for the campus design is placed on flexibility, use of traditional architectural elements and modern materials to provide for an optimised combination of natural lighting and cooling that minimise energy needs both indoors and outdoors.

Imperial War Museum London

The first phase of this major redevelopment includes a new ground-level entrance, landscaping at the front housing the iconic naval guns, twenty per cent more gallery space, upgraded visitor facilities and exhibition spaces.

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Bournemouth Pavilion Gardens

As part of the Nautilus regeneration scheme in Bournemouth, the nine-screen cinema is situated below ground with underground parking and shops and restaurants above ground.

Anglia Ruskin University MedBIC

The Medical Business Incubation Centre (MedBIC) is a mixed use building that comprises a suite of engineering research laboratories, office and meeting space, business support services and a student enterprise incubation space. The development is meant to serve as a hub to assist in the creation and growth of start-up and fledging medical technology businesses.

64-67 Mark Lane

Due to its proximity to a conservation area, planning restrictions have influenced the design of this commercial office and retail scheme such that a series of stepped roof terraces are formed, providing spectacular views over the Tower of London, London Bridge and the River Thames. The development achieves high environmental standards and turns New London Street into a pedestrianised area as part of the sustainable development of the City.

25 Churchill Place, Canary Wharf

Located adjacent to the Churchill Place retail mall, this 23 storey office building is one of the most energy efficient on the Canary Wharf Estate, designed to achieve a BREEAM excellent rating. It includes a public lobby at ground level and 19 office floors with mid-rise and roof level plant. Loading/unloading areas, storage and plant generally make up the basement levels.

2013

Tate Britain, Millbank Project

Tate Britain is the UK’s most renowned art gallery. Known as the National Gallery of British Art until 1932, it later became known as the Tate Gallery and in 2000 changed its name to Tate Britain. The original building in Millbank, London dates back to 1897.

The Millbank project was a multi-stage transformation that embodied the Tate’s commitment to providing a cultural experience appropriate to its stature as a world-class museum.
Maintaining the original façade of the Grade II listed building, the development aimed to improve gallery conditions, opening up circulation to the ground and upper levels. Visitor services were also being upgraded, with improvement works to the café and creation of new facilities for members.

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Blacon Crematorium

The redevelopment of Blacon Crematorium in Cheshire began in April 2012. The project was to build a new crematorium on the site of the older, existing building. The new building with its distinctive design incorporated a number of innovative environmental benefits along with creating a more uplifting and comforting environment.

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Flower Cellars

The Flower Cellars in Covent Garden transformed vacant basement and ground floor accommodation into a contemporary cultural centre that is home to the London Film Museum and Balthazar restaurant. With the eatery at ground level, the kitchens and back of house areas are located in the basement adjacent to the museum. Residential premises are located above and around the site, which also accommodate the London Transport Museum.
The original building on the site dates back to 1871 and was part of Covent Garden Flower Market, London’s oldest public square, until the 1970s. Maintaining the historical context of the space was an important design consideration, while the key acoustic challenge was protecting the amenity of the residential premises located above the restaurant. Standards much higher than those typically required for planning were adopted.

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SEPA Eurocentral

The design of a new fit out to provide SEPA with new laboratories, offices and meeting rooms at the Maxim Office Park at Eurocentral.

Edinburgh Botanic Gardens Lecture Theatre

The project involved the refurbishment and modernisation of the 250 seat lecture theatre. The volume of the space was increased by removing the existing ceiling and installing a new acoustically absorbent pitched soffit, comprising a timber slatted finish.

Edinburgh Napier University Music Department

The new facilities for music students at Napier University offer spaces for teaching, rehearsal, practice and recital. The facility includes three recording studios.

Urbanest, Kings Cross

Urbanest King’s Cross is student accommodation that raises the bar. In a sector not previously renowned for offering quality housing, the 669 student bedrooms in the scheme offer a unique blend of design and functionality.
The 27-storey tower covers nearly 20,000 sq. meters and includes communal areas, roof terraces and a café as well as the student dwellings.
In 2014 the development was named as the winner of a Value Excellence Award at the AJ100 Awards.

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Transforming Tate Britain

The first phase of this major project to transform the visitor experience and improve gallery conditions at the Grade II* listed Tate Britain involves refurbishment of the South East Quadrant Galleries, opening up circulation to the ground and upper levels, a new caf? and schools reception, new improved Members’ area and learning spaces.

Watershed Media Centre

Watershed comprises three cinemas, a cafe/bar and a suite of flexible conference and events spaces, which are housed on the first floor of a Grade II listed building. The building is complemented by the Pervasive Media Studio, a separate research and development space.

An Cridhe

An Cridhe on the Isle of Coll won top prize at the Scottish Civic Trust My Place Awards. The Main Hall provides a venue for music concerts, travelling theatre performances, sports activities for local clubs and school, social events, ceilidhs, private functions such as weddings, community cinema, and the annual Coll Gala and half marathon.

Regents Place

This prominent office development for British Land at Regents Place in central London comprises a 16-storey landmark development. It occupies a key site facing on to Euston Road and includes approximately 505,000 sq. ft of high quality office accommodation with retail and cultural space at ground floor level. The building is planned around three articulated blocks and linked by bridges across two dramatic full-height atrium spaces.

SSE Hydro Arena

The SSE Hydro Arena is located at the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre in Glasgow. It provides an arena venue for major music, entertainment and sporting events, seating up to 12,000 people plus 1000 standing. The 125m wide roof was designed to minimise noise breakout. The foyers have an ETFE facade.

Leeds Arena

The arena has a capacity of 12,500 when fully seated which can be increased to 13,500 with partial standing or reduced to 1,500 for smaller shows. It is used mainly for amplified concerts, family shows and sports events. One of the key acoustic issues was the provision of a high sound insulating building envelope to control noise egress to neighbouring residential buildings. Sandy Brown acted as Technical advisers on behalf of Leeds City Council in the review of contractors submissions, site monitoring and commissioning.

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Glasgow Film Theatre Cinema 3

The new 60 seat Cinema 3 at Glasgow Film Theatre is located in the area once used as a cafe, and its introduction involved a complete reconfiguration of surrounding ancillary spaces. Despite being located in an extremely constrained space in a historic building, the sound proofing between Cinema 3 and the other two cinemas meets modern-day standards for new build cinemas, using a box in box construction. We advised on all acoustic requirements for the cinema shell, and also on the bespoke fit out and finishes.

Evolution

A cascading office building in the Kurla area under the flight path for Mumbai’s international airport nearby. The design includes an acoustic louvred canopy to reduce noise levels in external areas.

Edinburgh University Centre for Carbon Innovation

The refurbishment and remodeling of the 17th Century Old High School together with new build accommodation, including an innovation suite, lecture theatres, seminar rooms, and a large atrium space for exhibitions events and social space.The building is designed to bring together experts from business, government and academia to collaborate on problems such as climate change and low carbon technologies. It has become the first refurbished listed building in the UK to earn a ‘BREEAM Outstanding Design Stage’ accreditation.

Vue Cinemas, Bicester town centre

This project sees the redevelopment of a large swath of Bicester’s high street with a new Cinema and Sainsbury’s as the anchors for a large retail centre. The primary acoustic challenge was detailing the isolation of the cinema from the car park located overhead as well as providing adequate sound separation and noise levels within the cinemas. The scale of the project in relation to Bicester’s high street also warranted careful assessment and attenuation of the environmental noise impacts from plant, goods movements, and traffic.

The Avenues

The development brings together six unique shopping experiences, each with its own character (The Mall, Grand Avenue, SoKu, The Souk, Luxury Mall and Bazaar). It houses 545 retail units in total, including 52 food and beverage outlets. The acoustic design included acoustic modelling and simulations of different acoustic conditions in the various different areas.

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2012

Milton of Leys Primary School

A new primary school at Milton of Leys, near Inverness.

121-123 Princes Street, Edinburgh

A development in the heart of Edinburgh’s city centre comprising 30,000 ft2 of retail accommodation and a 100 bedroom hotel above.

BSRC St Andrew's University

BSRC is an integrated research complex that includes the Centre for Biomolecular Sciences (BMS). The facility brings together scientists from Biology, Chemistry, Medicine and Physics engaged in research into infection and immunity. Over 160 staff, including over 60 PhD students, have access to state-of-the-art facilities.

Ninewells Hospital Nuclear Medicine Unit

The new nuclear medicine unit houses three gamma cameras which are used to diagnose conditions such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease and also for cardiac scans for heart disease.

NHS Grampian Emergency Care Centre

The Emergency Care Centre offers 8 floors of clinical accommodation (10 storeys in total). It is designed to meet all of the acoustic requirements of HTM08-01, thereby gaining BREEAM credits in relation to acoustic conditions inside the building and in relation to noise pollution to the environment.

Alan Gilbert Learning Commons, University of Manchester

The Alan Gilbert Learning Commons at the University of Manchester is a state-of-the-art study and learning centre. With 400 fixed workstations and 30 group study rooms, the space provides a stimulating and comfortable environment for study.
The build was a redevelopment of a 1960s refectory building where the concrete frame structure was retained. The final design was 40 per cent refurbishment and 60 per cent new build.
Covering a total of 5,500 sq metres, the building is structured around a central atrium. As well as housing a café in the foyer, this central area provides students with a social meeting space and adds further flexible study zones.

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Viridor North Manchester Recycling Facility

Investigative works at a large recycling facility on Reliance Street, North Manchester. Sandy Brown carried out extensive survey works to identify noise sources and advise on mitigiation measures to control noise transfer to nearby residential premises.
Sandy Brown has provided advice for a number of Viridor Recycling Centres in the north west of England.

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North Lanarkshire Schools

The North Lanarkshire schools project includes St Ambrose and Drumpark ASN School, Calderhead High School, Caldervale High School, and Alexandra and Rochsolloch joint campus primary school. Three of the schools are new builds, while Caldervale High School is a complete refurbishment of an existing building. We provided a full acoustic design service.

Park Hill, Sheffield

Regeneration of Europe’s largest listed building to provide 874 distinctive homes. This inner city development originally opened in 1961 with its famous ‘streets in the sky’. For the redevelopment, the building was stripped to its structure, its internal layouts were changed and its facade was replaced. The development also includes facilities such as shops, an art gallery, dance studios and a health centre.

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Pioneer Point, Ilford

A mixed-use scheme comprising two residential towers of 33 and 25 storeys containing 294 apartments. The towers are located above a three storey podium housing a gym and 80,000 sq. ft. of net commercial space.

The Power House Jazz Club

The Power House Jazz Club stands on a large waterfront site, part of an urban leisure area. The custom-built complex is in the form of two buildings linked by a stairway bridge to mirror the industrial appearance of the adjacent power plant building. The larger building is for live concert performances and events while the smaller contains Red Fire/Black Diamond, a club and restaurant venue featuring live jazz.

Queen Alia International Airport

The design concept for the terminal building, which is to cater for the expected increase in passenger traffic over the next 30 years, articulates a sense of Arabic hospitality drawing on the vernacular tradition of outdoor areas and open-air gardens. Large covered interior spaces form a direct relationship to the external environment and accommodate generous greeting and hospitality areas that are central to the terminal’s cultural programme.

University of Manchester, SCEAS Building

A new building for the School of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science. The facilities include pilot plant areas, which accommodate high noise level test equipment as well as research laboratories, classrooms and offices.

Tottenham Hotspur Training Facility

The training centre covers 67 acres comprising 11 outdoor pitches and a two storey training centre, which also has a basement, which has been designed to be an integral part of the landscape. The building has been designed around a 70m x 50m indoor artificial pitch which features a transparent ETFE roof. The building also incorporates a learning centre for the Academy and educational space, medical facilities, a hydrotherapy / swimming pool, fitness centre/gym, changing rooms, a canteen and media centre.

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University of Brighton

With more lecture space required by the University, the Post Office building in the Priory Quarter was renovated and the original extension replaced, providing lecture and seminar rooms, offices and a cafe.

Waltham Forest College, Heart of the Campus Walthamstow

The 1930s building was extensively refurbished to provide new formal and informal learning and meeting areas. A cafe at the entrance, in what was formerly the hall, draws users into the main building and a double-height space contains a library, while a new seminar pod is suspended over the learning centre. The hall area can be converted to a multi-function performance space by using the studio as a stage.

York St John University, Wilmott Building

Professional standard recording studio facilities constructed using floated box-in-box structures in an existing building. The facilities include a live room, voice booth and control room with 5.1 surround sound. High levels of sound insulation were achieved to control noise egress to neighbouring properties.

Yacht Club de Monaco

The yacht club, designed to be Monaco’s sporting and social hub, is a symbolic centrepiece of the city’s remodelled harbour front. The building creates a series of deck-like viewing terraces that step up along the harbour to offer unrivalled views out to yacht races at sea or inland over the course of the renowned Formula 1 Grand Prix circuit. Accommodation includes a sailing school, rowing club, event spaces, restaurants, bars, shops, cabins for visiting guests and a museum.

ZDF Television Studio

ZDF (Second German Television) is one of the largest television broadcasters in Europe. Their studio and offices near St James’s Park in London are in an early 19th Century listed terraced townhouse. The seven-storey building required refurbishment prior to the 2012 Olympics to provide upgraded office and broadcasting space.

Nirvana, 22/23 The Leas, Westcliff-on-Sea

A complex of 45 residences constructed on the Thames Estuary seafront in a building that evokes the sails of ships.

Andrew Marvell College and Kingswood College

Andrew Marvell Business and Enterprise College (AMBEC) and Kingswood College of Arts are amomg the first to follow the sample schools in the Building Schools for the Future scheme. Both schools replace the existing schools on the same site, with increased capacity. AMBEC offers additional community facilities, with drama and dance studios a music area and sports hall, while Kingswood has updated, open-plan teaching spaces and a central atrium.

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Assembly Rooms

Refurbishment of the Grade A listed 18th century Assembly Rooms on George Street, Edinburgh, to return the building to its former glory and enhance the facility for modern day requirements as an events venue whilst retaining and conserving the historic fabric. One of the main acoustic considerations was the acoustic performance of the Music Hall. Major interventions were made to enhance the sound insulation of the separating floor between the Music Hall and the Supper Rooms below so that the two spaces could operate simultaneously. Secondary glazing was added to minimise external noise break in to the Music Hall and to minimise noise breakout from noisy events. Measures were taken to optimise the acoustic quality. The building services systems were renewed throughout the building. Sound insulation was also a factor in many other areas including the ballroom, new bar, dressing rooms, and foyers.

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Barking Skills Centre

Part of Phase 1 of the London Road/North Street regeneration project, the Skills Centre is a new type of educational facility for 14-19 year olds, providing vocational training. The hair and beauty salon and student bistro are open to the public and operate as businesses within the centre.

China Central Television

CCTV’s headquarters in Beijing’s Central Business District comprises an iconic looped skyscraper and contains TV studios, offices, broadcasting and production facilities in two towers that lean towards each other, merging in a perpendicular 75 m cantilever. Sandy Brown provided initial advice on the planning and design of the specialist broadcast areas.

The Courthouse, Deansgate

The redevelopment and fit-out of two linked Grade II listed buildings, formerly used as a courthouse, to provide office and retail accommodation. The design included enhancements to existing structures, to provide greater flexibility in terms of possible uses, whilst still maintaining important interior features of the building.

The Crystal Urban Sustainability Centre

The Crystal is a sustainable cities initiative by Siemens that explores how we can create a better future for our cities. Based in the Royal Victoria Docks, the centre of London’s new Green Enterprise District, the Crystal is a natural home for thought leadership on urban sustainability. It provides a global knowledge hub that helps a diverse range of audiences learn and understand how we can all work to build better cities for ourselves and for future generations. It houses an exhibition space and a 270 seat auditorium, as well as office and meeting space, and restaurant and cafe facilities. As a world-class centre for dialogue, discovery and learning, it reveals the challenges that cities face, and the ways we can reduce their environmental impact using sustainable technologies, many available today.

Edinburgh International Conference Centre - Additional Function Space

The project comprises two distinct components: an expansion of the EICC conference facilities and a commercial office development. The EICC facilities consist of a new additional function space (2,000 m2 multi-purpose hall) below the existing street level together with a new extension comprising a new entrance and circulation space, cafe on the first floor and office space on the two upper floors. The multipurpose hall has a moving floor to form different seating configurations, and the space is sub-divisible using movable acoustic partitions. The 8 storey office development provides approximately 17,500 sq.m of Grade A office accommodation, with three retail units at ground floor level.

Eileen House, Elephant & Castle

The parallelogram-shaped 138 metre tall main tower housing 369 flats forms the northern point of a triangle of tall buildings which is central to the regeneration scheme for Elephant & Castle. The development also includes a 7 storey commercial building, residential amenity space, commercial units, retail and cafe space.

Harvard Art Museums

This project renovates Harvard’s historically registered Fogg and Busch-Reisinger Museums building at 32 Quincy Street (circa 1925), replacing a newer extension, adding considerable space, and modernising the building services in the process. Sandy Brown’s full acoustics service has included an extensive survey and measurement of existing conditions, informal tutorials on noise and acoustics for the client, as well as assessment, advice, and specification for sound insulation, room acoustics, environmental noise, and building services noise. Computer models were utilised to determine the effects of proposed major changes to the building’s internal enclosed courtyard, which is extensively used for events, with a number of options put forth for them to adapt the space depending on the type of event. The renovated museum will house galleries, lecture theatres and classrooms, study centre space, and a conservation lab in addition to offices, art storage and support space.

Jericho Health Centre Building

Situated on the ROQ campus, Oxford University, this three-storey health centre houses three GP surgeries and nursing services. The upper floors are occupied by the Department for Primary Health Care and Oxford University Publishers.

MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB)

The building is designed to house 440 scientists and is located on the edge of the current hospital site, on the expanding Cambridge Biomedical Campus and adjacent to the London-Cambridge railway line. It consists of two kinked laboratory blocks joined by a central atrium in a shape reminiscent of a chromosome. There are several notable features of the design. All heavy plant servicing the building is housed either in a separate energy centre, or in the four stainless steel-clad towers linked to the building. This removes sources of noise and vibration from the laboratory itself, allowing a more lightweight construction.

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2012 London Olympics Basketball Arena

This 12,000 capacity basketball arena is one of the key temporary venues on the Olympic Park site. During the 2012 Olympic Games the arena will not only host the basketball preliminaries competition but will also host the wheelchair basketball and wheelchair rugby competitions during the Paralympics Games. Detailed sound insulation and reverberation assessments were required because of the lightweight nature of the building structure.

Winstanley College, Media and Performing Arts Building

Acoustic performance was a priority in the this building containing two recording studios, TV and radio studios, music practice rooms and a dance studio.

Memorial Hall

The Memorial Hall is a Grade II building located in Albert Square, Manchester. It was built in 1866 in the Venetian-Gothic Style. After a long period of low usage, this project converts the interior into a lower floor restaurant, a ground floor pub, a first floor dedicated to function rooms and a boutique hotel on the upper levels.

New Ambassador's Residence

A two-storey residence for the UK Ambassador to the Sudan. A modern, efficient building incorporating high security, it serves not only as the home for the British Ambassador but also for functions and meetings.

2012 Olympic Athlete's Village

The design brief for the Athlete’s Village was to provide thousands of beds for athletes and officials during the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, as well as affordable housing as part of the Stratford City regeneration after the Games. Along with this accommodation, it comprises shops, restaurants, medical, media and leisure facilities, large areas of open space and a water feature. The acoustic design was essentially a two stage process, with the lasting legacy accommodation being the primary design consideration. The Games accommodation was then designed with temporary partitions used to provide increased capacity and additional bedrooms, with consideration given to a number of factors including providing appropriate acoustic separation.

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259 City Road

Adjacent to Regent’s Canal is a residential development combining private and affordable housing with retail units and parking on the lower ground levels. The private accommodation is located in a 28 storey tower with a triangular form, whereas the affordable housing is located across a landscaped courtyard in two lower buildings of 12 and 15 storeys.

2011

Travelodge Elgin

A new-build Travelodge Hotel on the outskirts of Elgin. We carried out a site noise survey and advised on the sound insulation requirements of windows and trickle vents to achieve the Travelodge internal noise criteria. The hotel is a traditional ‘timber kit’ design and we advised on all architectural acoustics and control of building services noise. We also undertook commissioning tests on completion to verify that all relevant Traveoldge acoustic standards were achieved.

Oxford Molecular Pathology Institute

The new build, world class research centre adjoining the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology provides state-of-the-art flexible laboratory spaces to facilitate around 200 scientists over four floors. The laboratory and research spaces surround an open-feature staircase and include offices, meeting rooms and computer services facilities.

The project was shortlisted for the RIBA Awards 2013- South and had a letter of commendation from the Oxford Preservation Trust Awards 2011 for New Building. The building also received a BREEAM rating of ‘Excellent’.

The New Marlowe Theatre

This prestigious development, in the historic city of Canterbury, includes a 1200 seat venue created using the existing fly-tower and 900 seat auditorium. The redevelopment also includes a new 200 seat second space, cafes, bars,rehearsal and backstage facilities. The theatre was a regional winner of a 2012 RIBA Award.

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White Water Centre, Lee Valley Park

The London 2012 Olympics site for canoe slalom races, this venue has two separate white water courses for rafting, kayaking, or canoeing. The Centre was a regional winner of a 2012 RIBA award.

University of the Arts

The University of the Arts is Europe’s largest university for art, design, fashion, communication and the performing arts. The new site for Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design will cater for 5,000 staff and students. The scheme includes dynamic new teaching spaces, studios and workshops, social spaces, lecture theatre and seminar facilities, flexible performance/rehearsal and exhibition spaces (including a 300 seat theatre), a museum and gallery, library, research and innovation centre. The project was one of the winners of a 2012 RIBA Award.

Waldorf Astoria Hotel, Syon Park

A new-build 137 bedroom luxury hotel set within the estate of the Duke of Northumberland at Syon Park in Brentford, next to the Thames. The site is Grade I listed parkland and the distinctive new hotel includes extensive conference and spa facilities.

The Studios, MediaCityUK

Located at the heart of Media City in Salford Quays, Manchester, the studio block features a concert studio for the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra as well as technical facilities for the BBC children’s and sports programming.
The facilities include 7 TV studios, ranging from 90 m2 to 1165 m2, along with a second major audio studio with variable acoustics for radio programming.

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Rotherham College of Arts and Technology Redevelopment

This provides a focal point entrance for the Town Centre Campus and forms part of the College’s long-term plan of development. It contains classrooms, offices and social areas.

Qatar National Convention Centre

Facilities include a 2,500 seat lyric theatre with variable acoustics; a 500 seat theatre with variable acoustics for chamber music and speech and a multi-purpose hall to accommodate 4,000 people for conferences or rock/pop concerts with a further exhibition space beneath. The building also houses six further conference spaces.

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Playboy Club London

Not far from the site of the original Playboy Club, this return venue features a restaurant, cocktail bars and casino over two levels as well as a specially designed acoustic canopy for the roof terrace.

Park City - Moscow

Park City is a residential community in Moscow with self contained public infrastructure including a school, child activity centre, fitness facilities and other amenities. Located directly between the Moscow River and Kutuzovsky Prospect the development provides a three hectare park, two dominant green boulevards and private residential areas providing a mix of high rise waterfront luxury residential towers. Commercial areas include state of the art Class A office buildings varying in height from nine to 70 stories, hotels, restaurants, retail, leisure and entertainment areas.

North West Kent College

North West Kent College has transformed its Dartford campus with a multi-million pound improvement scheme that provides state-of-the-art further and higher education amenities. New facilities include a multi-purpose teaching block, performing arts, dance and music studios, and a high quality sports facility with a double netball court sized sports hall and an indoor swimming pool.

Tripoli International Airport, new terminals

Detailed design of one of two new terminals to increase airport capacity to 20 million passengers per year. Each terminal has a floor area of 175,000 square metres and incorporates full facilities including 160 check-in counters, 12 baggage handling carrousels, 32 fixed and 64 mobile passenger boarding bridges as well as retail and CIP/VIP areas.

The Alchemist and Australasia

Located in Spinningfields in Manchester City Centre, The Alchemist is a bar-restaurant and Australasia is a gourmet restaurant serving Australian-Pacific fusion cuisine. Sandy Brown provided advice and specifications for sound insulation works to enable playback of loud amplified music without disturbance to other commercial tenants.

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Moray Council Offices

The conversion of a disused former supermarket building (originally built in the 1990s) to provide flexible office accommodation for Moray Council. The acommodation comprises large open plan areas, meeting rooms, breakout spaces and training rooms, which can also double as an emergency control centre. The building is naturally ventilated using wind chimneys. A BREEAM excellent rating has been achieved and the energy performance rating improved from G to B.

Mary Rose Museum

Henry VIII’s flagship ‘Mary Rose’ was completed in the year 1511 and sank in 1545. This museum provides a permanent home for its hull which was raised from the seabed of The Solent at Portsmouth in 1982. The hull requires highly specialist environmental conditions and the design takes an ‘inside-out’ approach, cradling the hull at the centre of the museum. A virtual glass hull, created alongside the original hull to represent its missing section, provides an in-context display of the artifacts found with the ship. Deck galleries run the length of the ship corresponding with the original deck levels and lead to further gallery space at the end. The building, constructed around the Mary Rose whilst maintaining the conservation environment in its old enclosure, is roofed by a low shell prefabricated structure.

ICON Innovation Centre

A multi-functional building for organisations involved in sustainable design and construction. It has 55 business units and a 200 seat auditorium with variable acoustics for music performance and conferences, all organised around a central “street”. The building is timber-framed with cross-laminated timber partitions. It is a recognised exemplar of energy efficiency, with an excellent rating from BREEAM, the assessment method for the environmental performance of buildings.

Four Seasons Hotel, Park Lane

This luxury five star hotel, winner of a RIBA London Award in 2012, is situated in London’s Mayfair and is set back from Park Lane overlooking Hyde Park. Its major refurbishment provides a domed rooftop extension housing grand spa facilities, expands the conference and event facilities, and completely updates the 146 guestrooms and 45 suites providing stylish and elegant design, improved sound insulation and noise control.

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Fort Augustus Abbey

Phased conversion of the Grade A listed former fort, monastery and school into 100 plus luxury flats with associated leisure facilities for the Raven Group. Design advice was given to control the transmission of noise via separating walls and floors, and sound insulation tests carried out at completion of each phase.

Edgbaston International

The new section of the stadium, which replaces the existing section of stadium, seats 8,250 spectators taking the ground’s capacity to 25,000. The re-development includes additional conferencing, banqueting and exhibition spaces, improved player, spectator, media and visitor facilities, plus the erection of permanent floodlighting and provides world class player and media facilities.

East Berkshire College, Langley Campus Development

Re-development of the East Berkshire College Langley campus comprising state-of-the-art accommodation including sport, construction, motor vehicle maintenance, engineering, creative arts and hair & beauty facilities.

Clapham One: Library, Leisure Centre and Gallery

The Clapham One regeneration project is intended to totally transform the community sevices in Clapham, consisting of three sites. The first is a mixed-use, state-of-the-art landmark scheme consisting of a new multi-storey block containing a library, GP surgery and apartments. The library is based around a spiral theme and includes a performance space, community rooms, a cafe and a customer centre. The second is a new leisure centre featuring a six lane, 25-metre swimming pool with movable floor, larger fitness suite, a four court sports hall, a climbing wall and community rooms. Finally, the old Clapham Library has been converted into a community art centre.

Canada Water Library

The Library, in the form of an inverted pyramid on five levels, forms part of a larger development in the Canada Water area of London’s Docklands and has a Tube entrance/exit within the building. The roof of the six-sided building protrudes 12m out from the base over the water. A 150-seat pentagonal auditorium forms part of the ground floor, while a sweeping staircase, lined with acoustic oak-veneered ribs ascends from the ground floor to the large open reading room. The lined, convex curve to the ceiling of the reading room reduces noise propagation within the spaces. Theh library was a regional winner of a 2012 RIBA Award.

MediaCityUK, BBC fit out

MediaCityUK is the UK’s first purpose-built media city in Salford Quays, Manchester. This fit-out project provides accommodation for the BBC over three buildings. Facilities include 21 radio studios, 28 edit suites, 4 open-plan presentation studios and offices.

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Baths Hall

A multi-purpose auditorium on the site of the old Baths Hall, which was demolished in 2008. The capacity is 1,200 seated or 2,000 with standing. The auditorium has variable acoustic finishes to provide flexibility for uses such as amplified music concerts, drama, comedy, classical music and sporting events.

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2010

Alness Academy

Completed in 2020, the £34 million development comprises a two-storey teaching block catering for 660 pupils, and a separate sports block including a games hall, gymnasium, and a swimming pool. The school features an open-plan assembly and dining space around which traditional classrooms are located. Advice was provided on all key acoustic aspects and acoustic testing was undertaken on completion.

North Lanarkshire Early Years Development

Completed in 2020, the project delivered six new-build early years centres for North Lanarkshire Council. The development provides facilities for up to 360 early years places across the region. Key acoustic requirements included sound insulation from the main open-plan play areas to the adjacent rooms, and the control of noise build-up throughout.

Centre for Energy and the Environment Thurso

The Centre for Energy and the Environment Thurso is a new campus building attached to North Highland College, used for teaching and research in renewable energy technology. The building is almost exclusively built from timber including Glulam and Cross Laminated Timber. It contains laboratories, meeting rooms, seminar rooms, and open plan office space. The acoustic quality in the spaces is controlled by use of acoustically absorbent wall and ceiling treatments, while allowing timber soffits to remain exposed. It is rated BREEAM excellent and achieved the highest BREEAM score for an educational facility in the UK, under BREEAM Higher Education 2008. All BREEAM credits in relation to acoustics were achieved.

Milton of Leys Primary School

A new primary school at Milton of Leys, near Inverness.

121-123 Princes Street, Edinburgh

A development in the heart of Edinburgh’s city centre comprising 30,000 ft2 of retail accommodation and a 100 bedroom hotel above.

BSRC St Andrew's University

BSRC is an integrated research complex that includes the Centre for Biomolecular Sciences (BMS). The facility brings together scientists from Biology, Chemistry, Medicine and Physics engaged in research into infection and immunity. Over 160 staff, including over 60 PhD students, have access to state-of-the-art facilities.

Ninewells Hospital Nuclear Medicine Unit

The new nuclear medicine unit houses three gamma cameras which are used to diagnose conditions such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease and also for cardiac scans for heart disease.

NHS Grampian Emergency Care Centre

The Emergency Care Centre offers 8 floors of clinical accommodation (10 storeys in total). It is designed to meet all of the acoustic requirements of HTM08-01, thereby gaining BREEAM credits in relation to acoustic conditions inside the building and in relation to noise pollution to the environment.

Alan Gilbert Learning Commons, University of Manchester

The Alan Gilbert Learning Commons at the University of Manchester is a state-of-the-art study and learning centre. With 400 fixed workstations and 30 group study rooms, the space provides a stimulating and comfortable environment for study.
The build was a redevelopment of a 1960s refectory building where the concrete frame structure was retained. The final design was 40 per cent refurbishment and 60 per cent new build.
Covering a total of 5,500 sq metres, the building is structured around a central atrium. As well as housing a café in the foyer, this central area provides students with a social meeting space and adds further flexible study zones.

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National Theatre, Qatar

The National Theatre in Doha comprises an auditorium for theatre and conferences, ancillary areas, and an office block. The auditorium which seats 500 is equipped with speech reinforcement, simultaneous interpretation and full audio-visual systems. A 1:50 acoustic model of the auditorium was used to optimise the acoustic design.

Imperial College London, Clore Theatre

A state-of-the-art lecture theatre for teaching, and major presentations and lectures.

Dundee College, Theatre and Dance Complex

The space, which houses the Scottish School of Contemporary Dance, includes a 200 seat auditorium with a flexible seating arrangement, 3 dance studios, conference rooms and associated facilities. It has received an award from the Civic Trust for an outstanding contribution to the quality and appearance of the environment.

20 Canada Square (DS4), Canary Wharf

A 12 storey office building on the south-east corner of Canada Square with two south facing atria. The building connects underground with the Canada Place retail mall and the Jubilee Line station. Tenants are the global publishing, financial, information and media services firm, The McGraw-Hill Companies.

25 Canada Square (DS5), Canary Wharf

Adjoining 33 Canada Square, Citigroup’s existing building, this is a 42-storey office tower. The linked buildings are known as The Citigroup Centre. Office floors include perimeter cellular offices and internal meeting/conference rooms.

5 Canada Square (DS1), Canary Wharf

A 15 storey office building on the north side of Canada Square at Canary Wharf consisting of large U-shaped floor plates with two stacked atria that offer a view towards Canada Square. Tenants include Credit Suisse First Boston and Bank of America.

Bellsdyke Hospital & Hill of Kinnaird

Environmental Noise Impact Assessment for a proposed development at the former Bellsdyke Hospital site and Hill of Kinnaird Farm, Larbert. The 88 hectare site will include a school, up to 1700 homes, 10,000 m2 business accommodation, a public park and nature reserve areas. The development will take place in phases, the last by 2019.

Canada Place (DS8), Canary Wharf

This six-storey retail and leisure building is located towards the eastern end of the Canary Wharf Estate. It has a large glass atrium at the entrance which is linked underground to the Canada Place retail mall. Tenants include the Reebok Sports Club, Waitrose and The Conran Group.

Capital International, 40 Grosvenor Place, London

Fit-out of three floors in 40 Grosvenor Place. Cooling is provided by a chilled ceiling system which produces low background noise levels. One of the key issues was maintaining acoustic privacy, particularly with regard to use of speakerphones. High levels of privacy were achieved between cellular offices and meeting rooms by use of acoustically rated partitions; sliding glass doors and specification of a sound masking system.

Gilston Park

Environmental Noise Impact Assessment for a proposed mixed development at Gilston Farm, Polmont. The development includes housing, retail, business units, and a distribution facility.

Institute of Technology, Dublin

The first four buildings for the Institute of Technology, home to the School of Business & Humanities and the School of Informatics & Engineering, on a greenfield campus in Blanchardstown just outside Dublin. The buildings house lecture and seminar rooms, library, administration offices, restaurant, multipurpose hall and apprentice training spaces.

Jubilee Place (RT3), London

The scheme is on three levels, providing a single retail floor with two levels of car parking below. It includes a mixture of shops, restaurants and public circulation space linked to the Jubilee Line underground station.

University of Oxford, Keble College, The Sloane Robinson Building

The lower part of the building contains the 250 seat flexible multi-purpose O’Reilly Theatre with control room and ancillary accommodation. Above this, and supported on a resiliently floated sound insulating structure, are a music recital room and a dining/conference area. The top part of the building contains teaching spaces and student rooms.

Sir John CASS Business School

The six storey CASS Business School in Islington forms part of the redevelopment of an entire urban block to the north of Chiswell Street, London. The school serves industry and commerce around the world in addition to the City of London and the business professions. Accommodation includes Harvard-style lecture theatres, conference/seminar facilities, a learning resource centre, break-out spaces and offices for academic staff.

Stirling Tolbooth Arts Centre

Conversion of a 17th century A listed building (formerly a town hall, courthouse and jail) to form a flexible 200-seat auditorium (theatre and music performance), high performance recording studio and rehearsal room, dance studio, offices, bar and restaurant.

University of Cambridge, Faculty of Music West Road Concert Hall

Refurbishment of the University of Cambridge Faculty of Music Concert Hall in West Road. The project involved the redesign of the ventilation system to reduce noise within the hall and outside adjacent premises, reupholstering of the seating (including laboratory testing) and redecoration. As well as the concert hall, the building contains lecture rooms, a rehearsal room and offices.

Barajas Airport, Madrid

The new fourth terminal building at Madrid’s Barajas airport – together with the associated satellite, rail and road connections – is designed to handle 35 million extra passengers annually. It is the first major new airport development of the 21st Century and builds on many of the concepts developed for the new Terminal five at London’s Heathrow Airport.

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Wallace Studios at Speirs Lock

In 2010 The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland opened Wallace Studios at Speirs Lock. The state of the art creative centre provides rehearsal and production facilities for students of modern ballet, musical theatre and technical production arts.
Designed by Malcolm Fraser, the Wallace Studios provide four large, high specification dance studios, wardrobe design studio and set design and construction space that features an industrial size paint frame.
Formed out of derelict steel framed storage sheds, the studios are naturally ventilated and lit by natural daylight from rooflights. Changing rooms, a fitness suite and other staff and student facilities sit around a central court that forms a social space for users of the building.
The new building won a RIBA award in 2011.

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Kempinski Hotel, Bahrain City Centre

This five star hotel provides 460 rooms and suites. A 1,000 m2 day spa is also included, which features a sauna and hamam, large outdoor pool and an extensive sundeck. The hotels have fully-equipped business centres with spacious interconnecting conference and banquet rooms as well as private meeting rooms and boardrooms.

Las Colinas de Marbella

This development includes 19 spacious villas and 61 luxury residential apartments. Within the grounds are a number of villas and duplex villa suites, all with private gardens, terraces and plunge pools. A self contained and state-of-the-art meeting complex includes a grand ballroom that can accommodate 250 people and a selection of smaller function rooms ideally designed for meetings, incentives, executive retreats and private dining.

Luton Sixth Form College

This prestigious development replaces the existing buildings on the college campus. The design of the building provides for up to 2,300 students a year and reflects the College’s strength in performing arts, with a multi-function theatre space, purpose built drama, dance and music studios, and a top quality TV studio with edit suites.

Medeu Village

A luxury ski village in the Kazakhstan mountains for developer, Capital Partners. Constructed for the 2011 Asian games in Almaty, this development stands at an altitude of 1600m and comprises residences, retail and restaurants with a gondola providing access to the Chimbulak ski area.

Dublin National Conference Centre

Design of a 2,000-seat auditorium with full fly tower and orchestra pit complemented by a 5,500 m2 exhibition and banqueting suite, a range of flexible meeting rooms and corporate hospitality suites.

BBC, Outside Broadcasting Production Units

Design and testing of six bespoke outside broadcasting vehicles. The units had to meet BBC standards of sound insulation while remaining as lightweight as possible.

Oxford Molecular Pathology Institute

A new world class research centre adjoining the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology that provides state-of-the-art flexible laboratory spaces, offices, meeting rooms and new computer services facilities.

Pavilion Dance Centre Bournemouth

The renovation of the existing listed Pavilion Theatre provides a regional centre of excellence for dance with two studios and a 200-seat auditorium, as well as rehearsal and performance spaces. The refurbished ballroom floor improves the sound insulation to the auditorium below.

Peterborough Hospital

The acute hospital, built on the Edith Cavell Hospital site, includes 612 inpatient beds, an emergency care centre, a high-tech diagnostics unit, women and children’s unit, cancer unit, specialist rehabilitation unit, renal dialysis and a multi-disciplinary training centre. The 102-bed mental health unit includes adult acute, psychiatric intensive care and older peoples units and services for people with learning disabilities unit, centralised dining, fitness, recreational and staff facilities and garden areas. The integrated care centre, built on the site of the Fenland Wing at Peterborough District Hospital, includes 40 specialist rehabilitation beds, a pharmacy, outpatient diagnostic and treatment centre, general rehabilitation services and children’s care centre.

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Royal Academy of Music Extension

An extension to the Royal Academy of Music’s Marylebone premises to provide music practice rooms and an opera studio within a former light-well which is surrounded by listed buildings including the grade II listed academy and terraces designed by John Nash.

St. Bololphs House

A landmark building, located in the prestigious EC3 insurance district of London, which forms a key gateway to the City of London. The upper eleven floors house high specification offices, while the first and second levels provide more flexible office space. The lower ground floors accommodate a multifunctional space and retail outlets. The main elevations are double glazed curtain walling with a visor element in front of the vision glazing, with louvre panels between the main cladding system and the core glazing. The roof plant is hidden from view by a raked blade type array which runs around the perimeter of the building.

International School, Aberdeen

The relocation of the International School of Aberdeen to Pitfodels as a consequence of the proposed Aberdeen By-Pass. The International School of Aberdeen was the first school in Scotland to offer the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme. There are approximately 490 students pre school-high school, with over 35 nationalities represented in the student population. The new school facilities provide classroom wings, sports centre, swimming pool, library, auditorium and music department and an internal street containing dining facilities.

Harvard Art Museums

This project renovates Harvard’s historically registered Fogg and Busch-Reisinger Museums building at 32 Quincy Street (circa 1925), replacing a newer extension, adding considerable space, and modernising the building services in the process. Sandy Brown’s full acoustics service has included an extensive survey and measurement of existing conditions, informal tutorials on noise and acoustics for the client, as well as assessment, advice, and specification for sound insulation, room acoustics, environmental noise, and building services noise. Computer models were utilised to determine the effects of proposed major changes to the building’s internal enclosed courtyard, which is extensively used for events, with a number of options put forth for them to adapt the space depending on the type of event. The renovated museum will house galleries, lecture theatres and classrooms, study centre space, and a conservation lab in addition to offices, art storage and support space.

Viridor North Manchester Recycling Facility

Investigative works at a large recycling facility on Reliance Street, North Manchester. Sandy Brown carried out extensive survey works to identify noise sources and advise on mitigiation measures to control noise transfer to nearby residential premises.
Sandy Brown has provided advice for a number of Viridor Recycling Centres in the north west of England.

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North Lanarkshire Schools

The North Lanarkshire schools project includes St Ambrose and Drumpark ASN School, Calderhead High School, Caldervale High School, and Alexandra and Rochsolloch joint campus primary school. Three of the schools are new builds, while Caldervale High School is a complete refurbishment of an existing building. We provided a full acoustic design service.

Nirvana, 22/23 The Leas, Westcliff-on-Sea

A complex of 45 residences constructed on the Thames Estuary seafront in a building that evokes the sails of ships.

New Ambassador's Residence

A two-storey residence for the UK Ambassador to the Sudan. A modern, efficient building incorporating high security, it serves not only as the home for the British Ambassador but also for functions and meetings.

Memorial Hall

The Memorial Hall is a Grade II building located in Albert Square, Manchester. It was built in 1866 in the Venetian-Gothic Style. After a long period of low usage, this project converts the interior into a lower floor restaurant, a ground floor pub, a first floor dedicated to function rooms and a boutique hotel on the upper levels.

Winstanley College, Media and Performing Arts Building

Acoustic performance was a priority in the this building containing two recording studios, TV and radio studios, music practice rooms and a dance studio.

2012 London Olympics Basketball Arena

This 12,000 capacity basketball arena is one of the key temporary venues on the Olympic Park site. During the 2012 Olympic Games the arena will not only host the basketball preliminaries competition but will also host the wheelchair basketball and wheelchair rugby competitions during the Paralympics Games. Detailed sound insulation and reverberation assessments were required because of the lightweight nature of the building structure.

MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB)

The building is designed to house 440 scientists and is located on the edge of the current hospital site, on the expanding Cambridge Biomedical Campus and adjacent to the London-Cambridge railway line. It consists of two kinked laboratory blocks joined by a central atrium in a shape reminiscent of a chromosome. There are several notable features of the design. All heavy plant servicing the building is housed either in a separate energy centre, or in the four stainless steel-clad towers linked to the building. This removes sources of noise and vibration from the laboratory itself, allowing a more lightweight construction.

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Jericho Health Centre Building

Situated on the ROQ campus, Oxford University, this three-storey health centre houses three GP surgeries and nursing services. The upper floors are occupied by the Department for Primary Health Care and Oxford University Publishers.

Granite Point Hotel

Renovation and extension of an existing Portelet Hotel, St Brelade, Jersey, including alterations of existing buildings. The facilities include 78 guestrooms, dining and bar areas, health and beauty and conference facilities. Work included testing of existing structures to determine whether they provided modern standards of sound insulation.

Eileen House, Elephant & Castle

The parallelogram-shaped 138 metre tall main tower housing 369 flats forms the northern point of a triangle of tall buildings which is central to the regeneration scheme for Elephant & Castle. The development also includes a 7 storey commercial building, residential amenity space, commercial units, retail and cafe space.

Edinburgh International Conference Centre - Additional Function Space

The project comprises two distinct components: an expansion of the EICC conference facilities and a commercial office development. The EICC facilities consist of a new additional function space (2,000 m2 multi-purpose hall) below the existing street level together with a new extension comprising a new entrance and circulation space, cafe on the first floor and office space on the two upper floors. The multipurpose hall has a moving floor to form different seating configurations, and the space is sub-divisible using movable acoustic partitions. The 8 storey office development provides approximately 17,500 sq.m of Grade A office accommodation, with three retail units at ground floor level.

The Crystal Urban Sustainability Centre

The Crystal is a sustainable cities initiative by Siemens that explores how we can create a better future for our cities. Based in the Royal Victoria Docks, the centre of London’s new Green Enterprise District, the Crystal is a natural home for thought leadership on urban sustainability. It provides a global knowledge hub that helps a diverse range of audiences learn and understand how we can all work to build better cities for ourselves and for future generations. It houses an exhibition space and a 270 seat auditorium, as well as office and meeting space, and restaurant and cafe facilities. As a world-class centre for dialogue, discovery and learning, it reveals the challenges that cities face, and the ways we can reduce their environmental impact using sustainable technologies, many available today.

The Courthouse, Deansgate

The redevelopment and fit-out of two linked Grade II listed buildings, formerly used as a courthouse, to provide office and retail accommodation. The design included enhancements to existing structures, to provide greater flexibility in terms of possible uses, whilst still maintaining important interior features of the building.

China Central Television

CCTV’s headquarters in Beijing’s Central Business District comprises an iconic looped skyscraper and contains TV studios, offices, broadcasting and production facilities in two towers that lean towards each other, merging in a perpendicular 75 m cantilever. Sandy Brown provided initial advice on the planning and design of the specialist broadcast areas.

Barking Skills Centre

Part of Phase 1 of the London Road/North Street regeneration project, the Skills Centre is a new type of educational facility for 14-19 year olds, providing vocational training. The hair and beauty salon and student bistro are open to the public and operate as businesses within the centre.

Assembly Rooms

Refurbishment of the Grade A listed 18th century Assembly Rooms on George Street, Edinburgh, to return the building to its former glory and enhance the facility for modern day requirements as an events venue whilst retaining and conserving the historic fabric. One of the main acoustic considerations was the acoustic performance of the Music Hall. Major interventions were made to enhance the sound insulation of the separating floor between the Music Hall and the Supper Rooms below so that the two spaces could operate simultaneously. Secondary glazing was added to minimise external noise break in to the Music Hall and to minimise noise breakout from noisy events. Measures were taken to optimise the acoustic quality. The building services systems were renewed throughout the building. Sound insulation was also a factor in many other areas including the ballroom, new bar, dressing rooms, and foyers.

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Andrew Marvell College and Kingswood College

Andrew Marvell Business and Enterprise College (AMBEC) and Kingswood College of Arts are amomg the first to follow the sample schools in the Building Schools for the Future scheme. Both schools replace the existing schools on the same site, with increased capacity. AMBEC offers additional community facilities, with drama and dance studios a music area and sports hall, while Kingswood has updated, open-plan teaching spaces and a central atrium.

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Pioneer Point, Ilford

A mixed-use scheme comprising two residential towers of 33 and 25 storeys containing 294 apartments. The towers are located above a three storey podium housing a gym and 80,000 sq. ft. of net commercial space.

Grace Academy

Located in Woodway Park in the north east of Coventry, the new academy comprises a mixed school and sixth form for 1,350 pupils aged 11-18 and specialises in Business and Enterprise. The design comprises a main building with four wings, each being two storeys high with a central overarching three storey cantilevered structure.

G1, George Square, Glasgow

The redevelopment of the Grade A listed former General Post Office building on George Square, Glasgow to provide a basement bar and restaurant area, underground parking and nine floors of high quality speculative office space. The original stone work facades are retained to contain the lower storeys while a three storey glass extension provides additional office space to the upper storeys.

Evelyn Grace Academy

An academy, sponsored by the children’s charity Absolute Return for Kids, that is notable for its angled internal walls and offset vertical arrangement which were advantageous for acoustics. The banding on the curving facade delineates the location of the four smaller schools making up the academy’s whole. The four schools share the central commons spaces and ground floor arts and sports facilities. Acoustic issues included sound insulation of the commons rooms with operable partitions, room acoustics for all spaces, and a ventilation strategy that maximised where natural ventilation was possible.

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Burlington Danes Academy

An academy expansion, sponsored by the children’s charity Absolute Return for Kids that provides a new performing arts centre and classroom building as well as refurbishment of the existing 1936 art-deco Grade II listed main building. The Dennis Potter Performing Arts Building provides a 300-seat auditorium as well as music lab, classroom, recording, and practice space, while the Stanley Fink Building provides first class learning spaces for English, Maths and Science, as well as commons space. The acoustic challenges were to orientate the buildings to maximise natural ventilation in an urban setting, provide proper room acoustics in cylindrical glass commons areas, and to provide an adaptable auditorium to be used for dance, exams, and lectures as well as theatre and music performances.

Barnet College, Wood Street Campus

The Wood Street campus of Barnet College has been re-developed to provide a state-of-the-art learning centre incorporating highly sustainable technology. Teaching, specialist and social areas are provided within the four-storey development.

AstraZeneca Corporate Headquarters

Located on levels 16 to 19 of the Broadgate Tower, the corporate headquarters includes open plan offices, private cellular offices, meeting rooms, quiet rooms, a conference suite with HALO video-conferencing room and restaurant facilities.

The Angel Building

Angel Building is a refurbishment located where City Road and St John Street meet Pentonville Rd. The existing concrete frame is re-used and re-wrapped with a highly energy-efficient glazed skin which extends the building’s envelope at selective points to create a better fit with the surrounding context. An existing open courtyard is enclosed to form an internal, top-lit public room entered off St John Street which acts as the heart of the building.

ZDF Television Studio

ZDF (Second German Television) is one of the largest television broadcasters in Europe. Their studio and offices near St James’s Park in London are in an early 19th Century listed terraced townhouse. The seven-storey building required refurbishment prior to the 2012 Olympics to provide upgraded office and broadcasting space.

Yacht Club de Monaco

The yacht club, designed to be Monaco’s sporting and social hub, is a symbolic centrepiece of the city’s remodelled harbour front. The building creates a series of deck-like viewing terraces that step up along the harbour to offer unrivalled views out to yacht races at sea or inland over the course of the renowned Formula 1 Grand Prix circuit. Accommodation includes a sailing school, rowing club, event spaces, restaurants, bars, shops, cabins for visiting guests and a museum.

York St John University, Wilmott Building

Professional standard recording studio facilities constructed using floated box-in-box structures in an existing building. The facilities include a live room, voice booth and control room with 5.1 surround sound. High levels of sound insulation were achieved to control noise egress to neighbouring properties.

Waltham Forest College, Heart of the Campus Walthamstow

The 1930s building was extensively refurbished to provide new formal and informal learning and meeting areas. A cafe at the entrance, in what was formerly the hall, draws users into the main building and a double-height space contains a library, while a new seminar pod is suspended over the learning centre. The hall area can be converted to a multi-function performance space by using the studio as a stage.

University of Brighton

With more lecture space required by the University, the Post Office building in the Priory Quarter was renovated and the original extension replaced, providing lecture and seminar rooms, offices and a cafe.

Tottenham Hotspur Training Facility

The training centre covers 67 acres comprising 11 outdoor pitches and a two storey training centre, which also has a basement, which has been designed to be an integral part of the landscape. The building has been designed around a 70m x 50m indoor artificial pitch which features a transparent ETFE roof. The building also incorporates a learning centre for the Academy and educational space, medical facilities, a hydrotherapy / swimming pool, fitness centre/gym, changing rooms, a canteen and media centre.

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University of Manchester, SCEAS Building

A new building for the School of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science. The facilities include pilot plant areas, which accommodate high noise level test equipment as well as research laboratories, classrooms and offices.

Queen Alia International Airport

The design concept for the terminal building, which is to cater for the expected increase in passenger traffic over the next 30 years, articulates a sense of Arabic hospitality drawing on the vernacular tradition of outdoor areas and open-air gardens. Large covered interior spaces form a direct relationship to the external environment and accommodate generous greeting and hospitality areas that are central to the terminal’s cultural programme.

The Power House Jazz Club

The Power House Jazz Club stands on a large waterfront site, part of an urban leisure area. The custom-built complex is in the form of two buildings linked by a stairway bridge to mirror the industrial appearance of the adjacent power plant building. The larger building is for live concert performances and events while the smaller contains Red Fire/Black Diamond, a club and restaurant venue featuring live jazz.

Park Hill, Sheffield

Regeneration of Europe’s largest listed building to provide 874 distinctive homes. This inner city development originally opened in 1961 with its famous ‘streets in the sky’. For the redevelopment, the building was stripped to its structure, its internal layouts were changed and its facade was replaced. The development also includes facilities such as shops, an art gallery, dance studios and a health centre.

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2012 Olympic Athlete's Village

The design brief for the Athlete’s Village was to provide thousands of beds for athletes and officials during the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, as well as affordable housing as part of the Stratford City regeneration after the Games. Along with this accommodation, it comprises shops, restaurants, medical, media and leisure facilities, large areas of open space and a water feature. The acoustic design was essentially a two stage process, with the lasting legacy accommodation being the primary design consideration. The Games accommodation was then designed with temporary partitions used to provide increased capacity and additional bedrooms, with consideration given to a number of factors including providing appropriate acoustic separation.

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259 City Road

Adjacent to Regent’s Canal is a residential development combining private and affordable housing with retail units and parking on the lower ground levels. The private accommodation is located in a 28 storey tower with a triangular form, whereas the affordable housing is located across a landscaped courtyard in two lower buildings of 12 and 15 storeys.

Project Decade

2000 - 09

2009

JLL, Landmark Building, Manchester

Jones Lang Lasalle (JLL) relocated to the 11th floor of the Landmark building in central Manchester. The project involved the fit-out of 14,000 sq ft of offices comprising new meeting rooms, open plan-office space and staff areas. The project achieved BREEAM Excellent and WELL certification.

Sir David Bell Building, University of Roehampton

The University of Roehampton’s new digital media hub is named after media figure Sir David Bell and involved the refurbishment of existing university buildings to create a modern, adaptable learning environment. The £13m development provides students with access to state-of-the-art film studios and editing suites, newsrooms, resources for media, photography and sound production, computer facilities and a 100-seat cinema.

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Anaerobic digestion plant, Aberdeen

The state-of-art facility at the The Event Complex Aberdeen (TECA) opened in 2020. The facility processes collected food waste from the city to produce biogass. This is fed into the national grid and also supplies the wider TECA site and its energy centre. Solid and liquid by-products are used in agriculture. A noise impact assessment was undertaken to assess noise from all processes to the nearby dwellings. A purpose-built noise barrier and other attenuation measures mitigate the impact of noise.

ARM Glasgow

The fit-out of two floors of office space at St Vincent Plaza Glasgow for ARM Holdings. The floors are mainly open-plan modern collaborative areas, but the few enclosed spaces provide a high level of privacy. Due to the complexity of introducing full height partitions into the existing space, the sound insulation is provided by upgraded plasterboard ceilings acting as sound insulating ‘lids’.

Apple Store, Marina Bay Sands

Apple Marina Bay Sands includes a 30-metre diameter dome which is fully glazed and surrounded by water. The main front of house retail space is accommodated within the glazed dome and this allows for panoramic views of the entire marina and the city skyline through the large panes of curved glass. The dome features an array of fabric baffles that spiral around the perimeter, which provide both solar shading and acoustic control within the store. Access to the dome is via a bridge to the boardwalk, and also via an underwater avenue tunnel from the Marina Bay Sands shopping mall.

Riva Hotel - Heathrow

A five-star, six block hotel at Heathrow comprising of 577 bedrooms with an external atrium referred to as the protective glazed envelope. This protective glazed envelope is designed to reduce noise to the areas directly around and between the hotel blocks as well as provide light to below ground levels. The basement areas contain restaurants, a conference facility with a ballroom, parking, spa, and a bowling centre which has its own entrance.

The Walbrook

A high-tech 50 metre long landmark building in the heart of the City of London, comprising high quality, air conditioned office and retail accommodation. Two trading floors are provided the largest being over 51,000 sq ft.

Usher Hall - Phase two

Phase two of the refurbishment and improvement of front of house and performance facilities of this important concert venue, including a new extension with foyer and hospitality areas.

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United Kingdom Supreme Court

Renovation of the Grade II listed Middlesex Guildhall in Parliament Square, which is the UK’s first Supreme Court. Work included remodelling of the existing courts, creation of a court in the south wing of the building, restoration of two original light wells, provision of a library, lift, public facilities and exhibition space.

The Towner Building

The Towner Building is a 21st Century addition to the Devonshire Park Cultural Centre and is adjacent to the Grade II listed Congress Theatre. The principal space is the gallery, which brings together the entire Towner Collection for the first time. In addition to the gallery, The Towner Building also includes conference exhibition space, community activity rooms and a cafe.

St Cecilia's Hall

St Cecilia’s Hall is the oldest purpose built concert hall in Scotland, dating from the 18th century. The building houses a large collection of early keyboard instruments, and is a special venue for recitals of early music. We carried out benchmarking acoustic tests and modelling, and provided input to the strategic appraisal / conservation plan study.

University of Oxford, St. Clare's College Student Acccommodation

Design of new build student accommodation and listed building renovation at the Banbury Road site of St. Clare’s College. The facilities include 49 study bedrooms with en-suite bathrooms and communal facilities. The design uses a cross-laminated timber structure for sustainability and speed of construction.

Scottish Ballet Headquarters

The Scottish Ballet – Scotland’s national dance company – is based in a purpose built home at the Tramway complex in Glasgow. The headquarters replaced a derelict section of the Tramway Arts Centre with a venue that has won the Grand Prix Award for Architecture and Best Public Building 2010 at the Scottish Design Awards.

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1 New York Street, Manchester

A distinctive office and retail development on a city centre site close to Piccadilly Gardens and Manchester’s metrolink. It provides 100,000 ft2 of high quality office space over 12 floors.

Ritz Carlton Hotel and Apartments

The hotel complex, situated in the heart of the Dubai International Finance Centre, contains a deluxe 350 bedroom hotel with gymnasium and spa plus conference and meeting facilities, all equipped with the latest technology. 120 serviced apartments, 300 residential units plus retail units, and three levels of underground car parking complete the complex.

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Northwood Prep - New Music Block

A conversion of a Grade II existing pavilion building to provide six music rooms and a multi purpose theatre. The music practice rooms have been fitted with a high standard of internal sound proofing to prevent noise egress from the building to dwellings in the vicinity.

JS Bach / Zaha Hadid Pavilion

A special commission for Zaha Hadid Architects to create a temporary space specifically for the performance of solo J S Bach chamber music. The brief was to create an intimate space for small audiences – a modern take on the 18th century chambers where the music was originally played so that the intricacies of the music could be heard rather than being lost in large concert halls. The shape was formed using lightweight non-fibrous fabric stretched over a metal frame with hidden acrylic reflectors to help project sound from the stage to the audience. The space was commissioned for Manchester International Festival 2009. The programme included solo concerts by Piotr Anderszewski, Jean-Guihen Queyras and Alina Ibragimova. The Pavilion was subsequently installed as part of Holland Festival 2010, Amsterdam.

Jewel and Esk College campus redevelopment

The Jewel and Esk Valley College is one of the largest further education colleges in Scotland, operating over two campuses. The redevelopment of the college has provided much needed 21st century learning environments in landmark buildings which features a state-of-the-art health and fitness suite, hair and beauty school and a catering school. There is also a performance space providing an extensive suite of recording studios, live rooms, rehearsal spaces, editing rooms, TV studio and instrument rooms. The Midlothian campus includes new workshop environments for facilities including plumbing, mechanical and electrical, construction, joinery and automotive trades.

Norwich Cathedral, The Hostry

Built on the medieval foundations of an original hostry area used to welcome pilgrims to the Cathedral. The new building blends the remains of the original building with modern stonework, oak columns and glazed walls. Facilities include a dedicated choir rehearsal room, a 150 seat conference room and education facilities for visiting school groups.

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Enerus Nuclear Academy

The Nuclear Academy is designed to be a world class centre of excellence for nuclear skills development to address the challenges facing employers in terms of nuclear decommissioning, energy production, potential new build and defence. The two storey building includes engineering workshops, training and meeting rooms, a circular lecture theatre and a comprehensive business support facility. One of the key acoustic challenges was the control of noise transfer from the workshops to the training and meeting areas.

University of Essex, E15 Acting School / Clifftown Studios

Conversion of a Grade II listed Victorian Church to provide studio space, theatre and back of house facilities for the University of Essex E15 Acting School for physical theatre and stage combat. There are a total of five varied and versatile studios. The theatre space has a capacity of 200 people and can expand into additional space via a full-height moveable acoustic wall. Back of house facilities include an armoury, technical suite, and workshops and stores for costumes and props. The acoustic challenges were to provide excellent room acoustics, appropriate internal background noise levels, and sufficient sound insulation between the diverse spaces.

Cranfield Mills

Cranfield Mill comprises a site of around 1.5 acres on St Peter’s Wharf in Ipswich. It is a large and prestigious residential development, consisting of 196 apartments in 5 different blocks. It also contains retail space, restaurants, bars, and new premises for the Ipswich based national dance company, DanceEast.

The College of Law, Manchester

The College of Law is the UK’s leading provider of legal education and training. This Manchester Centre provides a law school in the heart of the city overlooking Piccadilly Gardens. Facilities include seminar rooms, meeting rooms, office accommodation and a library.

Cranfield University, Chilver Hall

Following on from the success of Stringfellow Hall, which was completed in early 2008, the same team was commissioned to design further student accommodation at the West Road site at Cranfield University. The two new buildings are clad in cedar which will turn silver over time, blending in with the landscape. They provide high quality accommodation for 106 students, and were completed in 2009.

Bahrain City Centre Cinemas

This cinema complex provides 20 screens with an overall seating capacity of 4,200, making it the largest in the Middle East. The screens have the latest in technology, and the complex is the only one in the region to include a special cinema screen for VIP cinema goers.

2008

Achilles Therapeutics

This project involved the fit-out of a single floor of the 245 Hammersmith Road building for Achilles Therapeutics. The facilities include dedicated laboratory spaces, a boardroom, meeting rooms, open-plan office space and a staff kitchen/break area. The cellular spaces are designed to achieve high levels of sound insulation and speech privacy to enable confidential discussions to take place.

Hand & Flower House, Chelsea

This project involved the refurbishment and extension to the former Hand and Flower public house, to form five new high-end apartments and retail units at lower levels. A new-build three storey extension was also developed, forming two apartments with a glazed penthouse at roof level. The building was designed to provide sound insulation standards at least 5 dB better than the Approved Document E standards.

Moray Sports Centre

The £8.5 million new-build sports centre in Elgin provides dedicated sports and community facilities. The building contains an 8-court games hall, a gym, fitness studios, and a cafe. Acoustic design advice was given on all key aspects of the building and a noise impact assessment was provided as part of the planning application.

Kampus

Bringing a forgotten part of the city back to life, KAMPUS is a new neighbourhood by Capital & Centric and Henry Boot Developments located at the former Manchester Metropolitan University campus. The canal-side transformation is a celebration of the vibrancy and diversity of Manchester: a new cultural spot for the city complete with contemporary homes and independent shops, restaurants, bars and cafes.

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North Glasgow College

The new college building includes facilities for applied arts (including art, jewellery, fashion, drama, TV, video, radio and music), gymnasium, workshops (for construction skills, automotive and mechanical engineering), lifelong learning, care and supported learning, business studies, with associated classroom, lecture theatre and administration and support facilities.

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Willis Building, London

51 Lime Street consists of two buildings; a 10 storey block facing Billiter Street and a 29 storey tower with roof terraces on floors 16 and 23 facing Lime Street. A new public plaza is created at ground level along with accommodation for retail, restaurants and wine bars. The fit-out includes a basement auditorium (400 seat) & gymnasium, restaurant, conference rooms, studio, boardroom and offices.

Victoria Point, Hathersage Road, Manchester

Residential buildings in the Victoria Park area of Manchester designed for student accomodation. The buildings contain one, two and three bedroom apartments.

Velvet Mill

Conversion of a Grade II listed mills into 190 apartments that comprises a two storey roof top extension inspired by plaited yarns of silk which were once produced by the mill. The core fabric of the building was retained, whilst restoring the original window design and using decorative elements of the building to introduce further natural light.

University of Surrey, Multimedia Lab

Video and audio capture booths, control room and lab space for use in the university’s Centre for Vision Speech and Signal Processing. Acoustics challenges included providing sufficiently low noise levels using the existing ventilation system, reducing external noise with secondary glazing, and achieving high sound insulation performance in limited space and with existing slabs.

Subsea7 new campus building

The Subsea7 campus building was completed in September 2008, and is now occupied by almost 1200 staff. The new building consists of around 14,000 sq.m. of accommodation, spread over four storeys and split into wings which are arranged in a “pinwheel” plan. The heart of the building is its atrium, which acts as a circulation spine, linking the office wings together, creating an indoor street, and also giving onto the multi-purpose restaurant. This doubles as a “town hall” space where the staff gather for presentations and meetings, enabling several hundred people to come together. Acoustic treatment is strategically distributed within the atrium and restaurant areas to ensure that the acoustics of the spaces are appropriate for all intended uses.

Spitalfield Market Redevelopment

The scheme in East London involves the refurbishment of the Victorian marketplace to create a multi-functional space in which stalls will be stored at night to allow for uses such as exhibitions and talks. The existing pavilions are to house restaurants and shops.

Silken Hotel, Aldwych

This luxury hotel and apartment complex, situated on a prominent site where the Strand meets the Aldwych in central London, is integrated behind the grade II listed facade of Marconi House and features an 11-storey atrium, a rooftop breakfast bar, 270 bedrooms, 90 apartments, a restaurant and bars.

Royal Albert Hall - Elgar Restaurant

The Royal Albert Hall is a Grade I listed building of historical and cultural significance. The Royal Albert Hall also consists of 13 bars and three restaurants, including the Elgar. The refurbishment of this existing Elgar restaurant provides a new kitchen in the west porch, including new windows, air conditioning, air inlets/outlets to the porch roof and condensing units on the gallery roof.

Reiss Headquarters

Fashion retailer Reiss relocated their offices to this central London location just off Oxford Street, constructing a new building to house their flagship store and headquarters along with residential units and an executive penthouse. The distinctive facade has double-glazing behind an acrylic rainscreen that plays with sunlight during the day and is illuminated at night. Challenges included sound insulation between the three major building uses as well as providing a suitable acoustic environment for their unique corporate office setting.

The Quarterhouse

The Quarterhouse is an accessible social hub for the local community. It comprises a 250 seat (500 standing) multi-purpose auditorium for music, dance, theatre and conferences; two levels of cafe/bar facilities and a business enterprise centre.

New Woodlands School

An extension adding six classrooms, break-out space, art and other function rooms for this existing special needs school for pupils with emotional or behavioural difficulties. The configuration of the extension takes advantage of the quiet residential site to allow natural ventilation, while its lightwells and shading maximise useful daylight.

LJMU Design Academy Liverpool

Founded in 1825 as the Liverpool Mechanics School of Arts, Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) School of Art and Design is the oldest art school outside London. The Design Academy brings all of LJMU’s art and design programmes together in a stimulating new space, enabling more creative forms of teaching and research and also offering new facilities and services to the region’s creative industries business sector.

Langley Academy, Slough

Sponsored by the Arbib Foundation, this non-denominational academy accommodates approximately 1150 students, 900 aged 11-16 with the remaining 250 being post 16. The emphasis is on science where the building becomes a working educational museum with atrium exhibits from the Henley Rowing Museum, exposed services and natural ventilation, the latter complicated by significant airplane traffic from Heathrow.

KX200 student accommodation

A redevelopment of the former 1970s NatWest offices to form a mixed-use development with new student accommodation as well as other residential, retail and community uses. The cladding on the two towers was replaced with a unitised system, the towers extended and a new five-storey podium building added along the busy Pentonville Road.

Kolachi Enclave, Karachi Port Trust

Scheme design of a mixed use development for the Karachi Port Trust overlooking the Indian Ocean. At the heart of this development is a major convention centre containing a 1500 seat auditorium and function rooms. A main 76 storey tower houses a luxury hotel and 175,000 m2 of office accommodation. Four residential towers ranging from 20 to 35 storeys high are also located on the site along with retail space.

Jerwood Space

The Jerwood Space provides rehearsal space for young dance and theatre companies to develop their work. The project provides a major additional rehearsal space on top of the converted Victorian building.

Hereford Cathedral School - Sports and Science Facilities

The design incorporates a full sized gym and sports hall along with eight modern science laboratories and preparation rooms.

Floral Pavilion Theatre, New Brighton

A new-build theatre to replace an existing theatre used for drama, musical theatre, opera and variety performances. The design incorporates an 850 seat auditorium with variable acoustic finishes and an audio booth for providing commentaries to the visually impaired. Four flexible function rooms along with a panoramic lounge overlooking Liverpool Bay are also included.

York St. John University, College, De Grey Court

An addition to the York St. John University campus at Clarence Street corner. The building includes a 140 seat lecture theatre, teaching rooms, meeting rooms and staff offices. One of the key acoustic issues was ensuring the facade design sufficiently reduced noise ingress from busy adjacent roads.

The Broadgate Tower & 201 Bishopsgate, London

At a prominent city gateway location close to Liverpool Street station, the 35-storey tower and 13-storey office development is linked by two public spaces, the Piazza and Galleria. The scheme’s design controls structure borne noise and vibration from railway lines which run directly beneath the complex.

Bahrain City Centre

Bahrain City Centre is a large scale retail and leisure complex located in Manama, Kingdom of Bahrain. The development contains 207 000 sq. metres of retail space, two luxury hotels with 460 rooms, a 20 screen multi-plex cinema and the largest indoor water park in the Middle East.

Ashmolean Museum

The Ashmolean is the oldest museum in Britain, founded in 1683 as a beacon of learning for a new scientific age. It is the most important museum of art and archaeology outside London. The new building replaced all the display facilities apart from the original, Grade I listed 1845 building designed by Charles Cockerell and doubled the amount of display space – 39 new galleries, a new education centre, conservation studios, a walkthrough to the museum and the Casts Gallery.

ACC Liverpool

Opened by HM the Queen in 2008 for Liverpool’s year as European City of Culture, the Arena and Convention Centre Liverpool (ACC) provides a 10,000 seat multi-purpose arena, a conference centre with a 1,500 seat conference auditorium, and an 8,000 m2 exhibition facility, supported by a major public piazza. The conference auditorium includes two rotating drum sections which enable it to be transformed into 3 separate auditoriums at the touch of a button.

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35 Basinghall Street, London

To the east of the Guildhall Precinct, in the heart of the City of London, is the European/UK Headquarters for the Standard Chartered Bank. A simple seven-storey block with a two-storey pavilion set back at levels eight and nine meet the stringent height requirements set by St Paul’s Cathedral.

3 Hardman Street, Spinningfields, Manchester

Landmark 12 and 15 storey offices and retail building and a key part of the the Spinningfields area in Manchester. This building provides 400,000 ft2 (37,000 m2) of office space with some of the largest floor plates in the City of Manchester, ranging up to 35,000 ft2.

2007

Connah's Quay High School

The project involved the design and construction of a new two-storey school building comprising D&T, Food Tech, Art and Design and rooms for additional teaching provision and office space. The development was designed to achieve the BB93 Acoustic Design for Schools requirements and was tested pre-completion to ensure the relevant standards had been met.

University of Aberdeen CHP facility

The £10m combined heat and power (CHP) plant at the University of Aberdeen provides both heating and electricity for the Old Aberdeen campus. The main CHP engine is fired on natural gas and is capable of producing 1,630 kW of electricity and 1,700 kW of heat and replaced the old central heating station at the site.
The facility is in close proximity to residential areas and it was important that noise from the facility was adequately controlled.

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Lycee Francais Charles de Gaulle

The addition of two pod classrooms to an existing building in the central courtyard of the campus of the Lycee Francais Charles de Gaulle junior school. The Lycee is considered to be one of the best private schools in London with one in eight students placed there coming from British families who want their children to benefit from a bilingual education.

Westminster Academy, London

Located on the Westbourne Green Triangle between the busy Harrow Road and the A40 in west London, Westminster Academy caters for 1,175 students between 11 and 18 years old. Facilities include dance and drama studios, a community learning centre, science laboratories and a new sports hall. The Academy has a curriculum specialism of International Business and Enterprise.

Cranfield University, Stringfellow Hall

Accommodation for 250 mature post graduate students consisting of five near-identical blocks, each of five storeys. Rooms are grouped in sixes – five people plus a kitchen – with two groups per floor. Blocks are offset so that glazed corridor ends look out to greenery. The rooms are glazed floor to ceiling and have non-opening windows with louvered panels for ventilation. Winner of a Civic Trust Award 2009

Edinburgh College - Music & Performing Arts Centre

The Music Box is part of the College’s award winning faculty of creative arts. The facilities are intended for use not only by the college students but also the local community, as well as the professional arts community in Edinburgh and further afield. The building houses a recording studio and control room, a 120 seat flexible performance space, individual practice / rehearsal rooms, dance studio, digital audio suite, and classroom accommodation.

St. Marylebone School, London

A three storey building containing a gymnasium, drama/dance studios, music practice rooms and art studios. The design incorporates an underground gymnasium with a large covered courtyard to bring light through a transparent facade. An external basketball court is located directly above the gymnasium.

Sonic Marshmallows

These 2.5 m diameter acoustic mirrors were were installed at Wat Tyler Country Park in Basildon in February 2007 as one of a series of sculptures commissioned for the park. The brief was to create something playful and educational for children. The reflectors focus sound to allow people standing in front to hear each other’s whispers over a distance of 60 metres. The design was influenced by the acoustic mirrors built on the south and northeast coasts of England between 1916 and the 1930s to provide early warning of incoming enemy aircraft.

Smithsonian Institution - Robert and Arlene Kogod Courtyard

A spectacular courtyard enclosure of the Patent Office Building in Washington, which was the third federal building erected in Washington DC after the Capitol and the White House. Today it houses both the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery. The glass enclosure over the landmark Greek Revival building’s courtyard provides a central focus for the museums and a gathering point within one of the city’s liveliest and fastest-growing neighbourhoods. It is one of the largest event spaces in Washington.

Skyline Central

Close to Manchester’s fashionable Northern Quarter, this development consists of tiered residential buildings providing 248 apartments. On the 18th floor of the highest building is a 20 m indoor swimming pool with fully glazed facades providing panoramic views of the City Centre.

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew - Herbarium and Library

Founded in 1853, the Herbarium and Library form one of the largest collections in the world relating to botany with over 750,000 volumes and 7 million specimens which include the personal collections of some of Britain’s most celebrated scientists and explorers of the past like Charles Darwin and David Livingstone. Accounting for over 98% of the world genera this project enables the current collections to grow by 30,000 specimens each year.

Public Broadcasting Headquarters, Malta

Outline design for a purpose built public broadcasting building in a busy city centre site in Valletta. Facilities include 2 production TV studios, 4 radio studios, 6 edit suites, a newsroom and offices.

The Public

The Public brings together arts and technology. It contains the Hothouse and Nerve Centre which house interactive and multi-media IT facilities, a multi-purpose performance space, office workspaces, video and sound studios, retail, cafe and restaurant, and exhibition areas. These areas are housed in a series of internal and external pods

Newcastle College, Rye Hill House

Rye Hill House accommodates the central administration department and student services. The design incorporates the refurbishment of the B-listed historic Rye Hill House, with an adjacent major new build development to the side and rear.

Mid Beds Council Offices

The council offices are arranged around a double height public space with the meeting rooms providing a buffer between the public space and the three fingers of office space. The building also incorporates a council chamber with a curved glazed rear wall. The offices were designed to be naturally ventilated to ensure that the building will be be energy efficient and environmentally friendly.

Manchester Civil Justice Centre

The Manchester Civil Justice Centre is the largest project of its type since the Royal Courts of Justice were built in London in 1870. Located on Bridge Street, Spinningfields, in an established legal quarter of Manchester, it contains forty-seven law courts in an innovative 13-storey building with an 11-storey atrium. As part of a mixed-mode ventilation strategy, the design includes large ventilation ducts to supply fresh air throughout working areas of the building. One of the key design challenges was to ensure sound transmission through these ducts did not undermine acoustic integrity between rooms.

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21 Chesham Place, London

A luxury development of six apartments ranging in size from 440-777 sq m. each with their own terrace. The apartments are arranged laterally, each thereby taking up a whole floor of the building, two have private swimming pools and there is a duplex penthouse.

London's Transport Museum

A major refurbishment of London’s Transport Museum Grade II listed Flower Market building in Covent Garden including a new mezzanine floor for additional display space, renewal of exhibits and improved educational facilities. The latter includes a new 120 seat lecture theatre and learning areas.

Kingshurst Primary School, Solihull

Kingshurst Primary School is designed to accommodate 420 infants and juniors plus 60 places for nursery children. The school is the first of 10 new schools to be developed as part of a £1.8bn project to regenerate schools in North Solihull.

Haverstock School, Haverstock

Haverstock School includes classrooms, music facilities, a performance hall, a sports hall and ancillary accommodation. The buildings are naturally ventilated requiring special measures to attenuate noise from the busy road adjacent to the site.

Harris Academy, Croydon

This Academy accommodates 1360 pupils and consists of a 10,000 m2 three storey main building and a refurbished Victorian building containing performance arts accommodation, including a TV studio and music rooms. The location is particularly noisy, being close to busy roads and railways. One of the key elements in the project was the design of bespoke natural acoustic ventilators integrated within the cladding to allow fresh air to enter classrooms while controlling noise ingress. These are expressed in the facade of the main building which consists of projected concrete panels interspersed with louvred acoustic panels and glazing.

Folkstone Saga Academy

The Academy is for 11 to 19 year olds divided into eight houses specialising in creative arts and language. The building is a three storey development in a largely residential area and contains a performance space and film, video and sound recording and editing facilites.

Eden Court Theatre

Redevelopment of the existing theatre complex to provide new facilities, including the creation of a new 270 seat theatre with retractable seating and adjustable acoustics, two new cinemas (138 and 86 seats) to screen blockbuster movies and independent cinema from the UK and around the world, and two new dance and drama studios. The new theatre and cinemas are naturally ventilated. The capacity of the original 830 seat theatre was increased slightly to 847. The project also involved the redevelopment of the front and back of house areas, and replacement of all M&E systems plus extensive structural and fabric repairs.

Daniel Stewart's & Melville Hall

Major alterations to the assembly hall within the A-Listed Old College building to provide a multipurpose venue for school assemblies, drama productions, chamber concerts and other public events. As part of the alterations the floor of the hall was lowered by two metres to improve the proportions, sightlines and acoustics in what was previously a long, narrow and low space. The space can be configured in a number of ways using power-operated retractable seating, demountable staging and movable partitions to suit varying performance modes. Sound, lighting and ventilation systems were also installed.

Dakota Hotel, South Queensferry

The four star Dakota Hotel at Ferrymuir, South Queensferry, close to the A90 Forth Bridge approach road, provides 132 contemporary bedrooms, five meeting rooms and an award winning bar and grill restaurant.

Corby Academy

Corby Academy specialises in Business and Enterprise and can accommodate 1,250 students. The academy has flexible classroom space and is designed to meet the BB93 standards. Facilities include music, drama, theatre and sports.

Imperial College, Biomedical Engineering building

The biomedical engineering building, a refurbishment of the 1960s Bessemer building, houses the nanotechnology centre and bio-incubator suite. The front elevation of the building has been replaced and open research spaces created inside together with a roof top cafe and new entrance.

Belhaven Hill School, Dunbar

A new music department for the Belhaven Hill School in Dunbar. The accommodation includes two class rooms, nine practice rooms, and ancillary accommodation in a two storey building.

Adelaide Wharf, London

Located on the Regent’s Park Canal and winner of numerous design awards, Adelaide Wharf contains 147 one, two, three and four bed mixed tenure apartments in a five-storey building which surrounds a central landscaped courtyard with a children’s play space. The scheme provides 73 private flats, 33 for affordable rent and 41 key worker apartments.

4 Hardman Square, Spinningfields, Manchester

4 Hardman Square, located in the centre of Spinningfields, is a prime five storey office building with accommodation at ground and mezzanine level for mixed retail use.

3 Hardman Square, Spinningfields, Manchester

3 Hardman Square is a prime eight storey office building located in the centre of Spinningfields, Manchester’s business district. Mixed-use retail units are included at ground level.

215-219 Oxford Street and 1-9 Hills Place, London

The six storey mixed-use development, approximately 50m to the east of Oxford Circus, comprises retail on the basement, ground and first floors, the second floor as office/retail and the remaining floors above as offices. The existing listed corner building is retained in its current form and a new building constructed on the remainder of the site.

2006

Hampstead Garden Suburb Institute Arts Institute

A purpose built arts centre designed for adult learning on the site of a former neurological hospital close to East Finchley Underground Station. The building includes music and performing arts areas, 15 classrooms and 7 arts and crafts rooms. High ceilings and windows which provide light and spacious internal areas.

Cambridge Regional College, Block D

The addition of four lightweight mezzanine floors to one of the College’s buildings to allow the combined teaching of traditional noisy trades like construction and metal-working with academic and IT subjects in classrooms built above. The control of noise transmission was achieved by floating plywood deck and wooden cross beams on resilient pads so that the deck was isolated from from the structural frame.

Centre for Time Based Art

A centre for artists, professional practice, discourse and presentation of time based art in its broadest meaning. The centre facilitates experimentation with the creation and presentation of these art forms and includes media production and post-production facilities together with projection and visual presentation spaces.

De Montfort University Campus Centre Building

The three-storey high Campus Centre building includes a 300 seat auditorium and 80 seat studio for the performing arts, new dining centre, teaching facilities and academic offices.

Hilton Hotel, London Bridge, London

This 250 key hotel is set within a 13-acre commercial development, More London, on the South Bank of the Thames between London Bridge and Tower Bridge. The hotel is conceived as three interlinked strips clad in variegated, copper panels and ribbed, honed terracotta and these mediate between the historic Tooley Street Conservation Area and More London’s contemporary towers. A dramatic cantilevered frosted glass box, the banqueting suite is cantilevered over the main pedestrian axis. An executive sky lounge gives long distance views to the Thames.

Humberside Police Audiology Unit

A new audiology suite at the Courtland Road Police Training Centre in Hull. The facilities are used for monitoring the hearing of staff.

John Madejski Academy

A specialist Sports Academy sponsored by John Madejski, Chairman of Reading Football Club, provides 1,100 places for 11 to 18 year olds. The design for the Academy buildings separates general teaching spaces from those with noisy areas. Elements of the landscape include a partially planted ‘mound’ around the south of the building which encloses social areas and spaces for outdoor teachings, as well as helping to mitigate the road noise. Although naturally ventilated, noise from the classrooms had to be addressed. Attenuated trickle vents are installed to the perimeter of the classrooms, set just above the radiators so that cold air coming into the classroom is heated. Around the perimeter of the site a 2m high acoustic fence has been installed to reduce traffic noise. This fence has been set behind the existing hedge to reduce visual impact.

The Leas Hotel / Allcoat House, Southend-on-Sea

This historic seaside hotel was converted to several private flats and completely refurbished with a new extension and conservatory to the west. New floor construction using the original timber posed challenges to the sound insulation of the units, as did areas where staircases from one unit crossed an adjacent unit. The finished building still met and exceeded the sound insulation requirements of Approved Document ‘E’.

Mayfair Inter-Continental Hotel, London

A major refurbishment and extension of a 300 room hotel in Stratton Street, London. The refurbishment part of the design included introduction of a new function room and complete reconfiguration of all floor layouts. The extension included new penthouse floors and a new six-floor wing with a fully glazed facade. The design incorporated additional guestrooms, meeting and function rooms, a restaurant, bar and health spa. An important part of the design was acoustic isolation of a new function room from guestrooms. To achieve this the new function room was designed to float on isolation mounts above the existing structure.

Newcastle College - SPACE

The SPACE higher education centre provides a social venue for the college’s higher education students, including a large multi-use social area with raked seating, large screen TVs and a DJ gallery. The ground floor includes a drop in advice and interview area and spaces for student displays and informal meetings.

Newcastle College Lifestyle Academy

This 16 sq. metre development provides a new build facility for the college departments of Hair and Beauty, Sports and Fitness, Food and Hospitality, and Travel and Tourism. The facilities include classrooms, tutorial areas, IT suites, a student learning centre as well as lecture theatres. Additional facilities provided within these departments include a hair and beauty salon, wet treatment spa area, gym fitness studio, bar, restaurant and bistro area as well as staff rooms, administration facilities, stores, toilets and changing rooms.

Palace Theatre, Redditch

This Grade II listed theatre, designed in 1913 by the leading theatre architect of the day Bertie Crewe, is a rare example of Edwardian theatre architecture. With a sympathetically designed foyer and modernised visitor facilities, all the 1970s additions to the building have been removed and many of the internal and external features of the theatre have been restored to their former glory.

Western Harbour, Leith

We advised on Plot 2A, a residential apartment building, part of the large development overlooking the Firth of Forth at Western Harbour, Leith.

2005

Church of Our Lady and St Vincent

The Church of Our Lady and St Vincent de Paul is an award winning Catholic Church in Potters Bar.
It is the first new build antiphonal Roman Catholic Church in England. Mass is held using the length of the Church, with the congregation seated in pews either side.
This makes a large space feel surprisingly intimate as nobody is seated more than five rows from the Priest.
The elliptical building is made from brickwork with an inner lining of blockwork and is finished with timber decking inside.

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Havering College Centre for Creative Arts

A new three-storey arts and performance building on the Ardleigh Campus in Hornchurch, Essex. Accommodation includes dance, drama and TV studios, rehearsal and performance spaces, sound & video edit rooms and a radio station.

University of Luton Student Plaza

A new student community facility for the Park Street campus, built around a four-storey atrium. The ground floor provides social space suitable for a variety of activities such as teaching, meetings, ceremonies, study and leisure. The three upper floor levels are designed for teaching and learning.

St Ethelburga's Centre for Reconcilliation and Peace, Glass Entryway

Smallest of the City churches (a mere 51 by 30 ft), the 700 year old St Ethelburga’s Church survived the Great Fire of London (1666) and The Blitz (1941-43), but was destroyed by an IRA bomb in 1993. The church, finally restored and re-consecrated in 2002, became the Centre for Reconciliation and Peace. Noise through the front door from Bishopsgate was a consistent issue resulting in several design proposals for a glass entryway to allow both better sound control and more public visual access to the centre. SBA provided consultation on two of the designs.

New Garden House, London

Redevelopment/refurbishment of New Garden House, an office property at 78-83 Hatton Garden, London EC1, designed by leading architects AHMM which includes an additional 50,000 sq ft building within the courtyard of the existing development.

Natural History Museum - Darwin Centre Phase 2

This project completes the Darwin Centre, giving visitors physical and electronic access to almost 80 per cent of the Museum’s Botany and Entomology collections. These collections include material collected by Sir Hans Sloane, an eminent London physician and collector, who bequeathed his natural history collections to the nation in 1753 – a move that helped bring the British Museum into being and subsequently led to the foundation of The Natural History Museum. The building is designed to protect these vast “dry collections” from their biggest threat – attack from pests.

NATS Headquarters Phase II

130,000sq ft of three story office, technical and support accommodation arranged within a series of three interlinked buildings for around 1100 staff. The buildings are connected by triple height glazed links, with lightweight bridges connecting the adjoining floor plates.

Merton College Redevelopment

Replacement of an existing single-storey building fronting London Road with a new three-storey general teaching building containing classrooms, laboratories, interview rooms, staff and student facilities and administration offices. The remaining existing buildings on the campus are to be substantially refurbished.

Herbert Gallery, Coventry

The project comprised alterations to the existing building and a major new extension on a site directly opposite Coventry Cathedral. The public spaces opposite the Cathedral and the University draw the public through a glazed arcade into the galleries within the building. The development houses the museum’s collections and includes new galleries and a history centre, while providing a substantial environmentally controlled store to house the city’s archives.

All Saints Church, West Dulwich, London

All Saints Church is a Grade I listed building designed by George Fellowes Prynne. It was completed in 1891 but totally gutted by a major fire in June 2000. The project includes the reconstruction of the roof, windows and complete interior, and the construction of a new west entrance linking to the crypt below which houses multi-purpose rooms and offices.

The Cut, Oswald Street, Glasgow

The Cut is located in a busy city location between Oswald Street and Robertson Street in Glasgow, and contains 200 apartments. Many of the properties face a new central public square, but some elevations overlook the surrounding streets, including one where the existing facade was retained. Sandy Brown provided advice on sound insulation of separating floors and internal walls, and facade construction to attenuate noise ingress.

The City Lit

The City Lit is an independent adult education establishment which offers over 2000 courses. The design consolidated the institute’s diverse facilities into a single seven storey building. These include areas for teaching the hearing impaired, music practice rooms, drama and dance rehearsal rooms, art workshops (including a room for traditional sculpture work), a TV/radio studio, a learning resource centre and a cafeteria. Acoustic separation of noise producing activities from noise-sensitive areas played an important part in determining the building layout and structure.

Chelsea College of Art & Design, London

The remodelling and extension of the former Royal Army Medical College Grade II listed buildings at Millbank to provide a new home for the Chelsea College of Art & Design. The college was previously housed in a variety of premises dispersed across four sites in two boroughs. The scheme now consolidates its activities on to this important site adjacent to Tate Britain. Facilities include a lecture theatre, gallery, refectory, seminar and function rooms, library (with interactive and quiet study areas) and workshops.

Centre of the Cell, Whitechapel, London

This cluster of orange bubbles, inspired by the nucleus of a cell, is at the heart of the advanced medical research centre at Queen Mary’s Institute of Cell and Molecular Science. Housing a double-decker visitor centre for 30 people, the major challenge was the pod’s sound insulation and control of reverberation and reflections within a complicated and confined space. This was achieved by acoustically modelling and producing auralisations of the acoustic quality inside the space.

Apex City of London Hotel, London

This four star hotel features 130 bedrooms including a number of suites with private terraces, bar, restaurant, brasserie restaurant, five meeting rooms, gymnasium and spa facilities. The existing building was a 1950s office building. The conversion of the property involved creating a new glazed extension that over looks Seething Lane Gardens.

Anglia Polytechnic University - Rivermead Campus Phase A

Phase A of the Rivermead campus development comprises two buildings: a Student Centre which includes Student support and Union facilities, bar and restaurant; and a Sports Centre.

Anglia Polytechnic University - Opus One

The Opus One project brings the Music Department onto the APUs central Cambridge campus providing music teaching and practice rooms, recording facilities and a performance space. The project also includes new Student Union facilities.

2004

London Stock Exchange

New headquarter offices for the London Stock Exchange in the City of London’s Paternoster Square. The building has 8 floors with two atria, an auditorium, studios and a visitor centre.

Zetter Hotel, London

The Zetter is a conversion of a 19th century warehouse into a striking and stylish hotel in London’s fashionable Clerkenwell area, combining visionary design with innovative environmentally-responsible principles. The Zetter won the Architecture and the Innovation Awards, and a highly commended for interior Design at the European Hotel Design Awards in 2004.

Swiss Re - 'The Gherkin'

Often referred to as ‘The Gherkin’, this London landmark rises 180 sq. metres with 40 storeys, including two levels of retail within a spectacular double height arcade. Built on the site of the former Baltic Exchange, it is the second tallest building in the Square Mile after Tower 42 (formerly the Natwest Tower). It has a series of spiral atria typically closed every sixth floor and a restaurant at its peak. The building houses approximately 3000 people and saves energy by using no mechanical ventilation or heating for a large proportion of the year.

St Martin-in-the-Fields

St Martin-in-the-Fields is a 1726 Grade I listed building in Trafalgar Square designed by James Gibbs. The project improves the quality and quantity of space for its many activities – from church services and concerts, to provision for the homeless. This is achieved by the reconfiguration and integration of internal space in adjacent buildings and the addition of underground space adjacent to the church to provide a foyer, chapel and the Neville Marriner Rehearsal Room.

Southside (Arndale Centre)

Refurbishment and extension to the existing central mall of the Arndale Shopping Centre. The new build consists of the construction of a fourteen screen cinema with retail units below connecting to the existing shopping centre with a new concourse and entrance. It is one of the largest mixed new build and refurbishment projects in the UK.

The Scottish Parliament Building

The architects for this major development were EMBT-RMJM; a new partnership formed for the project between Enric Mirales, Benedetta Tagliabue and RMJM. The development consisted of a number of new and redeveloped buildings, forming three main areas: The Assembly buildings, which includes a debating chamber with press facilities and public galleries, committee rooms, libraries, restaurant facilities and bars. The MSP building accommodates the 129 members and their staff. Queensberry House, an existing Grade A listed building, was converted to provide meeting rooms, administration areas and party leader’s accommodation.

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Sacred Heart High School

Two new buildings dedicated to sports and technology, supplement refurbishment of an existing main building. Facilities include music practice rooms, a recording studio, drama studios and a library. The buildings were designed for passive ventilation generated from thermal stacking in a central atrium.

Petronas University of Technology, Malaysia

A unique and flexible space with 1000 seats on a flat floor, 1000 retractable seats and 100 seats on fixed tribunes used for examinations, Convocation, conferences and meetings. The platform stage can convert to proscenium format and a large glazed rear window can be blacked out for stage events.

Osney 1 Building

Conversion of the former Blackwell Science Building on the Osney Mead Industrial Estate to provide new accommodation for 130 staff from three major departments of the Oxford University Library Service. Facilities include the acquisition and cataloguing of new books and periodicals, the conservation of vulnerable and damaged historic collections and the maintenance of electronic resources which incorporates sensitive digital imaging.

West India Quay, London

A 33-storey building containing 158 high quality residential apartments, 96 serviced apartments and a 218 room Marriott hotel. The building is clad with high performance unitised curtain walling which was designed to reduce noise break-in from the nearby Docklands Light Rail system and control sound transfer between adjacent rooms. Bathroom pods were pre-fabricated off-site to achieve high levels of sound insulation between apartments and hotel guestrooms. The hotel contains a double-height restaurant and a ballroom which are separated from guestrooms by high performance sound insulating structures.

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Newcastle College Music, Performing Arts and Media Centre

The building provides accommodation for all Newcastle College’s music, performing arts and mixed media courses. It contains a 250-seat flexible theatre, a music venue for an audience of 200, a 60-seat studio theatre, recording studios, rehearsal rooms, television studio, drama & dance studios and a radio station. The development is the first of its kind for mixed media studies in the UK.

National Waterfront Museum Swansea

Wales’s National Waterfront museum on Victoria Quay in Swansea explores the dramatic economic and social changes in Wales over the last 200 years. Collections from both the National Museum and Galleries of Wales, and the former Swansea Maritime and Industrial Museum are included in the displays.

National Galleries of Scotland - Playfair Project

An underground link between the Royal Scottish Academy and the National Gallery of Scotland, providing access from a concourse area overlooking Princes Street Gardens, with new educational and visitor facilities, including a 200-seat lecture theatre and seminar room, bookshop and restaurant/cafe. The theatre will be used for musical performances as well as for speech.

Museum of World Culture, Gothenberg

The National Museum of World Culture in Gothenberg is both museum and cultural centre, without precedent in Sweden. On six levels, it includes a 150-seat multipurpose auditorium, four meeting rooms providing conference facilities, an atrium which lends itself to a variety of events, offices, a restaurant and shop. Level 1 provides the exhibition space, with further galleries on levels 3 and 4.

Meridian TV, Forum One

A new digital television centre for Meridian Broadcasting Ltd within a landmark building at the entrance to the Forum, which forms part of the Solent Business Park. Technical areas include three new studios, three galleries, five edit suites and five voice over booths.

The Lowry Theatre Redevelopment, Salford Quays

The project comprises the refurbishment of the existing facility at The Lowry to accommodate a 150 seat studio theatre, flexible dance/performance spaces, education rooms and corporate hospitality facilities.

10 Gresham Street, London

This office building, for Standard Life Property Investment, shares an island site with Wax Chandlers’ Hall. It has 10 levels and an atrium which expands as it rises to provide maximum daylight.

Lehman Brothers Headquarters

Lehman Brothers’ 32 storey European headquarters building provides for a range of banking facilities, mainly trading and investment banking, with support facilities, accommodating approximately 5,000. An auditorium, restaurant, executive dining and conference rooms are included.

James Watt College, Greenock

Practice room and recording technology facilities for James Watt College, Greenock

Imperial College - Faculty Building, Kensington

The four storey headquarters building on Imperial College’s South Kensington campus brings together key administrative staff for the first time under one roof. It houses a combination of open-plan spaces around the central core, perimeter cellular offices, meeting rooms, a boardroom and a Rector’s suite.

The Hospital studios

The refurbished former St Paul’s Hospital in London’s Covent Garden is a state of the art media and arts complex with studios, gallery, private members club and an 80-seat fine dining restaurant complete with private dining room for 12. The complex includes a unique multipurpose suite that can be used as a recording studio, photographic studio, TV studio and presentation area. Sandy Brown designed both “live end, dead end” acoustics with a very high level of sound insulation in triple sliding doors between the spaces

HM Customs & Excise and HM Inland Revenue

Renovation of the Grade II listed east end of the Government Offices on Great George Street (GOGGS), north of Parliament Square, for use by 1350 staff from HM Customs & Excise and the Inland Revenue. Over 1,400 windows, 500 rooms and 2.1 miles of corridors were refurbished, and 8.5 miles of wall removed, all without access to three sides of the building and with 30 per cent of it underground. The scheme also features a refurbished circular court, restaurant and library.

Grand Mosque for Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan the second

PA and acoustic design for a large Mosque complex in Abu Dhabi. Balancing the PA intelligibility with the architectural constraints was the major acoustic challenge.

Gleneagles Hotel - Braid House

Linked to the main hotel by a glazed corridor, Braid House is a four storey building containing 59 luxury bedrooms with balconies, fireplaces, sitting and breakfast areas and state of the art entertainment facilities. The building also contains four syndicate rooms. In addition to the acoustic design of Braid House, we also advised on the conference and leisure facilities and have helped resolve a number of sound insulation and noise problems in the historic areas of the main hotel.

Dalston Cultural Centre

The Dalston Culture House, which is the focal point for Gillett Square, provides a unique community resource combining a conference centre for the existing shared workspace and a new venue for the renowned Vortex Jazz Club.

Creative Enterprise Centre

New build arts centre at Victoria Dock, Caernarfon. The project is a hybrid between theatre/rehearsal facilities, and small office spaces aimed at young creative companies. The venue includes a 395 seat multipurpose auditorium (for concert, cinema and theatre use), two 100m2 rehearsal spaces, music practice rooms, office spaces, together with associated foyer, bar, cafe, dressing rooms, workshop and backstage accommodation.

Churchill Place, London (RT4)

A new retail building enclosed by a semi-circular glazed roof and surrounded by planting and water features at street level. An internal balcony of retail space/restaurants overlooks the main retail area which incorporates a new library/ideas store for the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.

Christopher Place - Phase II

An extension to the specialist teaching centre in Euston for hearing-impaired children under the age of five. Facilities include one-to-one therapy booths, a sensory and creative room for group work, classrooms with play space, a staff room and a family room.

Oxford University - Centre for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences (Phase II)

Phase II of the scheme for postgraduate studies including economics, criminology and politics. Facilities include a library, lecture theatres, seminar rooms, work spaces for graduate students and staff offices.

Cambridge Regional College

A specialist arts building for a sixth form college. The building includes music practice rooms, drama and dance rehearsal rooms, recording studios, classrooms and workshop areas. Space constraints meant that high noise level areas were adjacent to noise sensitive areas so to account for this the building fabric was treated with high specification acoustic attenuation measures. This included the installation of secondary MF walling / glazing, specialist suspended ceiling systems (floating rooms) and specialist acoustic doors.

Barclays Bank Headquarters

A 32 storey building located in Phase II of the Canary Wharf Development with 28 office floors, a promenade and three basement levels, plus associated plant floors. Barclays Bank plc occupy almost two thirds of the building. Facilities include two training floors, staff and private dining rooms, a health club, meeting/training rooms, offices, auditorium, recording studio, chairman’s flat and a helicopter landing pad.

Bancroft's School - Courtyard One Building

Construction of a three storey extension to provide additional facilities including a new school kitchen, a servery, teaching areas, a sixth form centre, a new sports facility housing a large multi-purpose hall, a modern fitness suite, changing rooms and offices. Natural ventilation to the classrooms is provided by cross ventilation through to a central lightwell with circulation and exhibition space.

2003

East Winter Garden, London

A spectacular barrel-vaulted glass atrium linking two new headquarters buildings at Heron Quays, Canary Wharf, for concerts, functions, entertainment, exhibitions and banquets accommodating up to 600 seated. A balcony overlooking the space provides a bar and cafe. A flexible arrangement of floor traps provides facilities for exhibition and displays. Special shaped sound loudspeakers are used to provide speech intelligibility in the highly reverberant space.

Universal Studios Worldwide Network

Central London playout facility for Universal Studios consisting of editing and format facilities, tape storage, racks and multi-channel digital control suite.

University of Surry, Unis Management School

Located on the University of Surrey campus in Guildford this three storey triangular building contains a 400 seat auditorium as well as seminar rooms, offices and video conferencing facilities. A central atrium provides access to all floors and acoustic treatments were necessary to control the transfer of noise within the atrium to adjacent sensitive spaces.

TVB New TV City, Hong Kong

Completely new building complex to house all TVB’s existing facilities for production, post production and transmission. The complex contains a major production centre with two large variety studios, nine drama and live entertainment studios, eight dubbing studios, and 23 on & offline edit suites. It also has a Major News Production Centre with four news studios and satellite up-link and down-link facilities as well as terrestrial transmission facilities.

Scottish Gas (Centrica) Headquarters

The four-storey corporate headquarters building for Scottish Gas, part of Centrica plc, is a functional high-density workplace and accommodates 1800 staff in two shifts. The ground floor provides meeting rooms, administration, IT, occupational health and a staff restaurant. The upper floors provide the customer contact centre comprising open plan workspaces arranged on both sides of the atrium.

Retail Park, Elgin

Noise assessment for a proposed non food retail warehouse park at Elgin, Moray.

Peebles Arts Centre

Conversion of a former church to an Arts Centre, comprising an auditorium and secondary performance/rehearsal space, foyer/gallery and ancillary accommodation.

University of Stirling - MacRobert Arts Centre

Refurbishment of the 500-seat main auditorium plus new build three-storey extension to the 1960s buildings at the University of Stirling. The new extension contains a new 100-seat children’s theatre, a 140-seat film theatre, foyer spaces, creche and cafe bar.

Lanark Sheriff Court

Refurbishment of the existing courtroom, design of a new courtroom, together with a new build extension containing Sheriff’s chambers, witness rooms, library and cell accommodation.

Imperial College Business School

The four storey headquarters building on Imperial College’s South Kensington campus brings together key administrative staff for the first time under one roof. It houses a combination of open-plan spaces around the central core, perimeter cellular offices, meeting rooms, a boardroom and a Rector’s suite.

Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith

Advised on the extension and refurbishment of the facilities at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith, West London, which included a rehearsal room, classroom and a cafe outdoors on a podium.

Ernst & Young, Birmingham

Fit-out of the upper floors of a new office development at 1 Colmore Square, Birmingham. Facilities include open-plan offices, break-out spaces, conference/training facilities and a boardroom.

Ernst & Young, London

This nine storey office building occupies a prominent Thames riverside frontage site on the north-west boundary of the More London development. The main entrance is through a double storey height glazed screen into an atrium. Facilities for Ernst & Young’s 3200 staff include an auditorium, conference suites, meeting/training rooms, open plan and cellular offices.

15 Canada Square (DS3), Canary Wharf

This 12 storey speculative office building includes a seven storey atrium, two levels of trading floors, nine floors of office space, two plant floors and four levels of parking.

Dubai International Convention Centre

The Dubai International Convention Centre facility is linked to the Dubai International Exhibition Centre by a covered concourse that offers a range of amenities including shops and restaurants and 18 syndicate rooms that accommodate from 40 to 220 (theatre style). The main auditorium, which can accommodate from 600 to 6000 individuals, is complemented by four large meeting rooms, housed in the same multi-purpose hall.

Clifford Chance Headquarters

On 33 levels, this corporate headquarters building for International law firm Clifford Chance provides offices, meeting rooms, partner dining rooms, 75 client conference/meeting rooms, a 250 seat auditorium and staff facilities including retail, a swimming pool, gymnasium, aerobics rooms, squash courts and a 500 seat restaurant.

City Inn, Westminster

The 14-storey City Inn Westminster is the largest new-build hotel in central London. It contains 460 bedrooms, a restaurant, an ‘Art Street’, coach and car parking. It is regarded as the company’s flagship hotel.

Bullring

The Bullring provides Britain with one of Europe’s largest and most innovative shopping destinations. Bullring comprises traditional streets, squares and open spaces – and a glass ceiling ‘Skyplane’ over the public malls forms a horizontal weather screen.

BBC Music Centre

The winning design for the new BBC’s Music Centre was taken to detailed design stage. The building includes two major music recording studios and is to be home to the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Chorus, the BBC Concert Orchestra and the BBC Singers, bringing them together in one place for the first time. An important feature of the studios is a large glazed end wall designed to provide high levels of sound insulation and to diffuse sound within the studios.

Bank of England Wellness Centre

As part of a commitment to improving staff facilities, The Bank of England wished to provide a modern occupational health facility incorporating a medical suite and fitness centre. Sensitive medical equipment was installed as part of the facilities for doctors and dentists. This meant high acoustic standards were required to isolate rooms from intrusive noise and vibration from underground trains. Aerobics and spinning studios were included in the fitness centre and sound insulating constructions were used to prevent disturbance from loud music transferring to sensitive working areas in the building.

Bancroft's School - Adams Building

Refurbishment of the three-storey listed Adams Building, which houses the music department, to provide updated music and practice facilities on the North End Campus of Bancroft’s School in Woodford, Essex.

Ashmole School, Barnet

A three storey secondary school built on an existing school site in Southgate, Barnet. The building contains 61 classrooms, a gymnasium, a sports hall, a library and an assembly hall.

Anglia Polytechnic University - Michael A Ashcroft Centre for Business

The project continues the planned development of the Rivermead Campus at Anglia Polytechnic University. The Michael A Ashcroft Centre for Business is a space designed to be flexible and adaptable, with facilities for learning, teaching and research, as well as for conferences and seminars. It includes an auditorium, offices and meeting rooms.

40 Bank Street (HQ3), Canary Wharf

One of five Heron Quays office buildings located on the south side of Canary Wharf. This 32 storey building, which incorporates an intermediate plant floor, is a speculative development for multiple tenancy.

20 Bank Street (HQ1), Canary Wharf

A new 13 storey office building for Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, adjacent to the Heron Quays Docklands Light Railway (DLR) station, connecting directly to the Jubilee Park retail mall and Jubilee Line station. Unusually, the building core is on the east face and acts as a barrier to the DLR.

2002

20 Canada Square (DS4), Canary Wharf

A 12 storey office building on the south-east corner of Canada Square with two south facing atria. The building connects underground with the Canada Place retail mall and the Jubilee Line station. Tenants are the global publishing, financial, information and media services firm, The McGraw-Hill Companies.

25 Canada Square (DS5), Canary Wharf

Adjoining 33 Canada Square, Citigroup’s existing building, this is a 42-storey office tower. The linked buildings are known as The Citigroup Centre. Office floors include perimeter cellular offices and internal meeting/conference rooms.

5 Canada Square (DS1), Canary Wharf

A 15 storey office building on the north side of Canada Square at Canary Wharf consisting of large U-shaped floor plates with two stacked atria that offer a view towards Canada Square. Tenants include Credit Suisse First Boston and Bank of America.

Bellsdyke Hospital & Hill of Kinnaird

Environmental Noise Impact Assessment for a proposed development at the former Bellsdyke Hospital site and Hill of Kinnaird Farm, Larbert. The 88 hectare site will include a school, up to 1700 homes, 10,000 m2 business accommodation, a public park and nature reserve areas. The development will take place in phases, the last by 2019.

Canada Place (DS8), Canary Wharf

This six-storey retail and leisure building is located towards the eastern end of the Canary Wharf Estate. It has a large glass atrium at the entrance which is linked underground to the Canada Place retail mall. Tenants include the Reebok Sports Club, Waitrose and The Conran Group.

Capital International, 40 Grosvenor Place, London

Fit-out of three floors in 40 Grosvenor Place. Cooling is provided by a chilled ceiling system which produces low background noise levels. One of the key issues was maintaining acoustic privacy, particularly with regard to use of speakerphones. High levels of privacy were achieved between cellular offices and meeting rooms by use of acoustically rated partitions; sliding glass doors and specification of a sound masking system.

Dundee College, Theatre and Dance Complex

The space, which houses the Scottish School of Contemporary Dance, includes a 200 seat auditorium with a flexible seating arrangement, 3 dance studios, conference rooms and associated facilities. It has received an award from the Civic Trust for an outstanding contribution to the quality and appearance of the environment.

University of Cambridge, Faculty of Music West Road Concert Hall

Refurbishment of the University of Cambridge Faculty of Music Concert Hall in West Road. The project involved the redesign of the ventilation system to reduce noise within the hall and outside adjacent premises, reupholstering of the seating (including laboratory testing) and redecoration. As well as the concert hall, the building contains lecture rooms, a rehearsal room and offices.

Gilston Park

Environmental Noise Impact Assessment for a proposed mixed development at Gilston Farm, Polmont. The development includes housing, retail, business units, and a distribution facility.

Institute of Technology, Dublin

The first four buildings for the Institute of Technology, home to the School of Business & Humanities and the School of Informatics & Engineering, on a greenfield campus in Blanchardstown just outside Dublin. The buildings house lecture and seminar rooms, library, administration offices, restaurant, multipurpose hall and apprentice training spaces.

Jubilee Place (RT3), London

The scheme is on three levels, providing a single retail floor with two levels of car parking below. It includes a mixture of shops, restaurants and public circulation space linked to the Jubilee Line underground station.

University of Oxford, Keble College, The Sloane Robinson Building

The lower part of the building contains the 250 seat flexible multi-purpose O’Reilly Theatre with control room and ancillary accommodation. Above this, and supported on a resiliently floated sound insulating structure, are a music recital room and a dining/conference area. The top part of the building contains teaching spaces and student rooms.

Sir John CASS Business School

The six storey CASS Business School in Islington forms part of the redevelopment of an entire urban block to the north of Chiswell Street, London. The school serves industry and commerce around the world in addition to the City of London and the business professions. Accommodation includes Harvard-style lecture theatres, conference/seminar facilities, a learning resource centre, break-out spaces and offices for academic staff.

Stirling Tolbooth Arts Centre

Conversion of a 17th century A listed building (formerly a town hall, courthouse and jail) to form a flexible 200-seat auditorium (theatre and music performance), high performance recording studio and rehearsal room, dance studio, offices, bar and restaurant.

2001

15 Westferry Circus (WF9), Canary Wharf

A 10 storey office building for Morgan Stanley Dean Witter occupying a prominent site at the western end of the estate.

Arthur Andersen Headquarters

A three-storey building constructed within Arundel Great Court, a courtyard off the Strand, forming part of Arthur Andersen’s UK headquarters. The building provides a suite of conference spaces, two floors of offices and a multi-purpose atrium with variable acoustics for presentations.

Barbican Concert Hall refurbishment

As part of a phased refurbishment programme for the Barbican Concert Hall, an acoustic survey was carried out to assess detailed acoustic characteristics and deficiencies in the main hall. Advice was provided on the feasibility of undertaking technical improvement work.

Birmingham Hippodrome

The Birmingham Hippodrome was built in 1899 and has since been at the heart of Birmingham’s cultural life. This project was part of its Centenary Development plan and included the refurbishment and improvement of the auditorium, public and backstage areas. It also included the construction of a second smaller theatre and new dance studios for the Birmingham Royal Ballet and DanceXchange.

Bloomberg

The refurbishment of Bloomberg’s City Gate House building and expansion into 50 Finsbury Square next door. The project includes five storeys of offices, 6 TV studios, an auditorium, training rooms and dining facilities.

Edinburgh Gate Business Park

Environmental Noise Impact Assessment for the proposed redevelopment of the former Continental Tyre Factory site, at Newbridge, Edinburgh. It is intended to develop the 24 hectare site to provide 90,000 m2 of office and other business accommodation.

Imperial College, Flowers Building

Multi-disciplinary research facility located within Imperial College’s South Kensington Campus housing research and support laboratories with adjacent open plan offices, a social area and seminar/meeting rooms. Includes highly sensitive electron microscope and NMR suites.

Marylebone Parish Church

This church lies along the old Ty bourne, a stream that formerly ran from what is now Regent’s park to the Thames. A church has stood on the present site since 1400 although the current building dates from 1817. In 1980 a Rieger pipe organ was installed in collaboration with the Royal Academy of Music. The organ is seated on a rear balcony which has meeting rooms and social facilities directly underneath. Sound from the organ was distracting for people using the rooms so constructions between the organ and the rooms were upgraded to improve the sound insulation provided.

National Space Centre

The Centre, a landmark Millennium Project for the East Midlands, comprises a 41m high Rocket Tower clad in inflated ETFE containing a space vehicle, a 3,500m2 exhibition space with interactive exhibits, a Planetarium and a Challenger Learning Centre which houses ‘mission control’ rooms.

Said Business School

The Salford Business School’s purpose-built building, situated in the centre of Oxford, combines state-of-the-art teaching facilities with classically modern architecture and landscaping. The building includes a 300 seat lecture theatre, four 80 seat Harvard style horseshoe-shaped lecture theatres (with dual screens to enable simultaneous use of a range of visual media), two 75 seat lecture theatres, seminar rooms, project rooms, meeting rooms, an audio-visual editing suite, library, offices, catering facilities and ancillary spaces.

Warner Village, Two Rivers

A 10 screen cinema complex forming part of the 22,000 m2 Two Rivers retail and leisure development by MEPC

2000

IAXIS

Elliptical glass boardroom and elliptical glass Network Operations Control Centre as part of the fit-out of 200 Grays Inn Road for IAXIS, the former fibre-optic network company. The concept of the “floating” glass boardroom table with integrated AV technology and fibre-optics was developed by sculptor Danny Lane. Computer acoustic modelling was used in the design, which won an award.

Yuen Long Auditorium, Hong Kong

The natural acoustic of this multi-purpose auditorium has been designed predominantly for music. The provision of a fly tower and retractable horizontal and vertical absorbent elements in the auditorium allow the acoustic of the space to be altered so that it can also be used as a theatre.

William Ellis School, London

Alterations and extensions to increase space within the existing building at the William Ellis School. A new art room, library and assembly hall is provided by means of a mezzanine floor.

Usher Hall

For over thirty years Sandy Brown has been involved in the renovations and improvements to this prime venue. The 1999/2000 renovations included new stage lifts, new seating, alterations to allow “promenade” concerts, upgrading of lighting, new raked auditorium floor, new concert platform and the complete replacement of the mechanical and electrical services.

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University of Bath Student Accommodation

Four new buildings accommodating 211 students and resident tutors, with kitchens, studios and study rooms, as well as parking and gardens.

Sharjah University, Sharjah Meeting Hall

A landmark building at the entrance to the new Sharjah University. The facility contains a conference centre with boxes for the Ruler and his guests on a balcony. A range of large subdivisible breakout rooms is accessed by escalators at an upper level.

Royal Academy of Music, David Josefowitz Recital Hall

The new 100-seat David Josefowitz Recital Hall is the centrepiece of the project, which also included the conversion of buildings in York Gate to provide music instrument workshops, library and special music collection, a public exhibition area, and many teaching and practice rooms. The Recital Hall is partly below ground level but includes a large sound-insulating window at high level. Acoustic computer model studies were used to develop the suspended diffuser/reflector in the shape of an inverted exploded T to provide early reflections, which ensure good orchestral ensemble and also eliminate focussing from the vaulted ceiling. The project won an RIBA 2002 award.

Overgate Centre, Dundee

This redevelopment of a 1960s centre creates a bold new vision for city centre development in the next millennium. Avoiding the usual introverted malls, a series of glass-sided walkways link the 35,000 m2 of shops and 1000 space car park, whilst giving views out onto the 17th Century church of St Mary.

Newbury Race Course Tattersall's Stand

Tattersall’s Stand at Newbury Racecourse consists of a betting hall/exhibition space on the ground floor, bar on the 1st floor, and a 600 seat restaurant divisible into two for a range of functions including conferences.

NBC 2000 Sydney Olympics TV and Radio Studios

A 6000 m2 technical complex to provide TV and radio coverage of the 2000 Olympics for the entire USA. The complex consisted of two large demountable studios (600m2 and 320 m2) control facilities, editing, formatting, graphics and transmission facilities. The demountable studios, and their integrated control galleries, were specifically designed to serve five Olympic venues, Sydney being the first.

Science Museum, Making of the Modern World

Development of the ground floor of the Welcome Wing at the Science Museum in South Kensington SW1, to be used for regularly changing exhibitions and displays as well as catering and retail. The 1st floor encompasses a world-class biomedical exhibition.

The Lowry Centre

This is the UK’s first purpose-built cultural centre combining the performing and visual arts. Situated on the banks of the Manchester Ship Canal, it comprises a gallery to display the world’s largest collection of paintings and drawings by L.S Lowry, and incorporates the Lowry Study Centre – a 1650-seat theatre capable of staging opera, ballet and drama and a 400-seat flexible auditorium for community theatre.

11-13 Hoborn Viaduct

New office development incorporating measures to control structure-borne noise from the Thameslink railway beneath the building.

Harrow Place Travel Lodge, London

A Granada Travelodge hotel in Harrow Place E1 floated on elastomeric bearings, as it was built over the Metropolitan line between Liverpool Street and Aldgate Stations.

Fingal County Hall

Three five-storey wings of shallow, cross-ventilated offices are linked across one end by a stunning vertical main street; the outside entrance wall of which is a full height curved structural glass screen. A circular council chamber is open along one wall to the gaze of passers-by outside the main street. Great efforts have been made to achieve a sustainable low energy building. This is evident within the offices where a combination of curved precast concrete ceilings, integrated lighting and a curtain wall providing natural opening lights and solar shading, obviates any need for artificial cooling. The Council Chamber is the only truly air conditioned space in the building.

Falkland Islands Memorial Chapel

The Falkland Islands Memorial Chapel seats 580 within the ground floor area and gallery. Its design is reminiscent of the shape of a ship – almond or ‘mandorla’ shaped – denoting hands cupped in prayer.

Daewoo Headquarters

Daewoo’s new R&D Headquarters building includes a 600 seat auditorium to host conferences and presentations with a VIP gallery and lounge.

Broadgate Information Centre

Fit-out of marketing suite resiliently supported to protect it against noise and vibration from the passage of trains immediately below.

British Museum Great Court

The Great Court project gives public access the old Reading Room for the first time. The Great Court is glazed over to form a major new public space for the Museum, which includes restaurants and retail space. In addition, the project provides a new conference centre with two auditoria (350 and 150 seats) and five flexible seminar and meeting rooms. The old Reading Room has been re-arranged to house Compass computer terminals giving the public access to the Museum’s interactive multi-media exhibits.

Bristol 2000 Wildscreen World

Wildscreen, part of the inspirational Bristol Landmark Millennium project is a unique wildlife attraction combining live exhibits, such as small animals and plants, with state of the art multimedia techniques which includes the 200-seat IMAX cinema. Designed to comply fully with the stringent requirements of IMAX Corporation and the client’s brief, sound insulation to contain the very high sound levels produced in such spaces has been provided.

Bluewater Cinemas

A 12 screen cinema complex in the south village of the Bluewater shopping centre in Kent. Cinemas are stacked on two levels and range in size from 90 to 440 seats.

Armstrong Studio

A conversion of a mews house into a music composition/recording facility for the leading recording artist and film/classical composer Craig Armstrong. Mr Armstrong has worked with many artists such as Madonna, U2, Bjork, Massive Attack; and written the scores for box office hits such as Romeo & Juliet and Moulin Rouge (for which he won a Golden Globe and BAFTA award).

Al Faisaliah Complex

The complex includes a five-star hotel, a banqueting and conference centre, luxury apartments, a three-storey retail mall and a 267 sq. metre high office tower – Saudi Arabia’s first skyscraper. The banqueting hall can accommodate activities ranging from wedding ceremonies for up to 2,000 people to conferences for up to 3,400 and has a column-free space 57 sq. metres wide and 81 sq. metres long, with a moveable partition system that can divide the hall into sixteen separate rooms.

50 Finsbury Square

Office building by developers Standard Life Property Investments which set a record for London office rents when it was let to Bloomberg.

Project Decade

1990 - 99

1999

17 Columbus Courtyard (B4), Canary Wharf

This 11-storey shell and core office building, occupied by Credit Suisse First Boston, is linked to 20 Columbus Courtyard by glass sided walkways at ground and fifth floor levels.

20 Columbus Courtyard (B5), Canary Wharf

This 11-storey office building, occupied by Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB), is joined to the original CSFB building at One Cabot Square. It houses the trading floors, meeting rooms, conference areas plus comprehensive staff facilities including a restaurant, gymnasium and retail spaces.

40 Grosvenor Place, London

Overlooking the grounds of Buckingham Palace, this office building is designed to house four or more tenants in space divided either vertically or horizontally. It contains an atrium winter garden, restaurant, health club, conference facilities and shops.

Adobe Headquarters

Headquarters office building for Adobe, situated at Edinburgh Park. Includes cellular and open plan offices, meeting rooms, video conference room, restaurant, training rooms and computer equipment rooms.

Bank of England Conference Centre

Tiered conference facility formed from a redundant banking hall with breakout and hospitality facilities. In addition to being used for internal conferences and meetings it is also used by the Monetary Policy Committee and for television presentations.

BT Headquarters, Edinburgh Park

The building, located on the northern end of the new Edinburgh Park development, comprises three separate office blocks each opening onto a central atrium. The blocks are connected by separate enclosed atria. Longitudinal ‘streets’ join the three blocks on the east and west facades with meeting rooms in the east street. A linked amenity block contains the staff restaurant, kitchen, cafe, touchdown centre and conferencing facilities.

The Corn Exchange Edinburgh

Conversion of a former Corn Exchange building (listed Category B building) to form a multipurpose venue, with uses including a music venue, exhibition space, banqueting suite, and conference events. A major consideration was upgrading the sound insulation of the building envelope, which included large areas of windows and roof glazing, to minimise sound transmission to nearby noise sensitive areas.

Dundee Contemporary Arts

Dundee Contemporary Arts Centre includes galleries, 2 cinemas, meeting rooms, a cafe/bar, a small recording studio, and extensive creative facilities with an emphasis on printmaking and new technology / modern art forms.

Exeter and Devon Arts Centre

The project encompassed the construction of a new theatre, remodelling of the Arts Centre, and construction of new Media Centre within an existing shell in Gandy Street, Exeter.

Kwai Tsing Auditorium, Hong Kong

A multipurpose fan-shaped auditorium whose natural acoustic has been designed for theatre use. An electro-acoustic enhancement system makes the auditorium more acceptable for music uses.

Millennium Dome

The UK’s premier exhibition space to mark the 2000 millennium. This vast dome is constructed from a stretched flexible membrane and is large enough to contain the whole of Wembley stadium and its car park. It is designed to contain a variety of exhibits and corporate buildings, as well as a central performance area.

Musee de la Pre histoire des Gorges du Verdon

This museum includes a substantial display, research and archive areas, as well as a generous double height entrance hall with a shop and a cafe, and an auditorium capable of seating 100 people for lectures or for village events.

Soho Theatre and Writers Centre

A flexible theatre with removable balconies capable of theatre-in-the-round or end-stage configuration, together with rehearsal space, writing facilities and restaurant. The auditorium is fully floating to provide high levels of sound insulation from the rehearsal space.

Tanzania National Television

Sandy Brown, as specialist architects and acoustic consultants, worked in conjunction with a local architect Moses Mkony to establishment of a national mainland television station in Dar-es-Salaam.

Tron Theatre Glasgow Redevelopment

Parts of the building on the Tron Theatre site date back to 1529, and previous architects include Robert Adam. This latest redevelopment was in five phases comprising improvement and redevelopment of the auditorium, a new box office and foyer, studio theatre, bar and administration facilities and improved back of stage facilities.

Tunnel Construction at Talacre Road, London

A purpose designed noise enclosure to facilitate 24-hour tunnel excavation and construction in a residential area. Achieving the required noise control with a low cost, rapid-build construction were the prime objectives.

1998

Aspire National Training Centre

The Aspire leisure centre provides training and rehabilitation facilities that have been made fully accessible to users with mobility, hearing or visual impairments. In line with the charity’s vision of promoting integration between disabled and non-disabled users, the centre is fully open to both.
Facilities at the centre include a 25 metre swimming pool, a fully integrated fitness studio, sports hall, dance studio and an on-site café.

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Bluewater, Kent

Bluewater, built on the site of a former chalk quarry, is the UK’s biggest and most significant retail and leisure scheme. A total of 154,000m2 of leisure, retail and catering facilities are provided together with a multiplex cinema, water features, entertainment areas and a themed food court.

Carlton Digital Centre

This complex in Mortimer Street comprises edit rooms, voice over booths, audio and dubbing control rooms together with two transmission suites.

University of Oxford, Centre for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences (Phase I)

Across the canal from St Catherine’s College, the Centre for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences contains a large entrance atrium, library, IT training areas, seminar rooms, common rooms, cellular and open plan offices.

ONdigital

This complex in Marco Polo House, Battersea comprises transmission suites, edit suites and audio dubbing facilities, where analogue signals are received and converted into digital for transmission.

Robert Gordon University, Faculty of Management

This four storey building comprises the Faculty of Design Library, three lecture theatres (two with 150 seats and one 250 seat), seminar and conference rooms, offices, an atrium and student facilities.

Imperial College, Sir Alexander Flemming Building

The nine storey Department of Biology and School of Medicine houses a 320 seat and a 150 seat lecture theatre, five 50-70 seat seminar rooms, nine 20-35 seat seminar rooms, administration offices, student accommodation, teaching & research laboratories and ancillary areas. Users are grouped according to the amount of noise they make and an acoustic screen separates the undergraduate areas from the upper research floors.

1997

Anglia Television

This addition to Anglia Television’s TV complex contains two news studios – each 150m2 – together with newsrooms, control rooms, voice-over booths and edit suites. In addition, there is a 1,300m2 production studio and control rooms.

The Drill Hall, Bloomsbury

A scheme design for the lottery funded reconstruction of the Drill Hall in Bloomsbury to provide a new theatre, studio theatre, dance studios and other arts facilities.

Gatwick Airport acoustic wall

The Gatwick ‘wavy wall’, designed by Anthony Hunt Associates, was built of concrete to shield the residents of Horley from the noise of aircraft using three new stands at the North Terminal. The wall is 430m long, 11m high and shaped like a wave, the surface appearance changing with the light and rain.

Royal Marines School of Music, HMS Nelson

The relocation of the Royal Marines School of Music New Entry and Higher Music Training to HMS Nelson, Portsmouth for the Ministry of Defence. The project included teaching facilities for brass and percussion instruments, a piano/aural recital room, 36 music practice rooms, 13 professional tutorial rooms and 10 small ensemble rooms.

ICANHO Centre

The ICANHO Centre, a brain injuries rehabilitation day centre, is run by the John Grooms Association for Disabled People and serves mainly young people. The building has three functional areas – therapeutic, employment training & multifunction, and general – represented by three ‘partitions’ connected by a glazed internal street with a greenhouse at the end.

Rose Bruford Theatre and Studio

A new theatre building at the Rose Bruford College main campus in Sidcup, Kent. The theatre comprises a 400-seat theatre-in-the-round and 200m2 studio.

Clyde Auditorium

The Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre (SECC) contains an auditorium on two balcony levels, a proscenium stage and fly tower, and has the largest seating capacity in the UK. The roof form resembles a cluster of ships’ hulls, reflecting its position beside the River Clyde.

St George's Chapel, Heathrow Airport

The inter-denominational chapel at Heathrow Airport, with prayer room and counselling room.

Temple Police Station

Conversion of a single storey office building above Temple Underground Station into a new base for the British Transport Police. It comprises a custodial suite of 6 cells, offices, a conference room and 2 ‘taped interview’ rooms.

Finsbury Park Station

A feasibility study for the refurbishment of Finsbury Park Station. The project included a new ticket hall, constructed under the BR railway lines, with a sound insulating ceiling, among other measures, to reduce the high noise levels of trains passing directly overhead.

1996

Oxford Circus Station

Feasibility study for the refurbishment and upgrading of the underground station at Oxford Circus.

St Barnabas Church, Dulwich

Following a fire that destroyed the old church, funds were raised for its rebuilding. The new church contains an organ by Kenneth Tickell and the acoustic design ensured that absorption at low frequencies did not diminish the impact of the organ’s full range.

University College for Lincolnshire

A completely new university on a waterfront site in Lincoln city centre, including a 250-seat lecture theatre, a number of smaller lecture theatres, offices, a board room, seminar rooms, administration and executive offices, laboratories, and a large atrium.

University of Westminster, Harrow Campus

A media centre with broadcast quality TV studios forming a major extension to the University’s facilities at the Northwick Park Campus, Harrow. The facilities include three TV studios, two of which have a floor area of about 250m2 with associated control rooms; four radio studios with associated control rooms; music practice rooms and 8 &16 track recording studios with associated control rooms, library spaces and a 300-seat lecture theatre.

1995

Chingford Hall Estate noise barrier

The Chingford Hall Estate is one of four developments of the Waltham Forest Housing Action Trust and is situated alongside the A406 North Circular Road. It is affected by high road traffic noise and a barrier, 6 sq. metres high and over 500 sq. metres long. It was constructed between the road and the estate to protect both the facades of dwellings and their gardens. Landscaping the gardens behind the barrier softened its visual impact.

Commercial Registry Judicial Building and Courthouse, Isle of Man

Modern complex housing five courts and associated areas.

Edinburgh International Conference Centre

This prestigious conference centre occupies a prominent site near to Edinburgh Castle and is the landmark building for the new Edinburgh financial centre. The conference centre has in total seven performance spaces ranging from 1,200 to 300 seats.

University of Cambridge, Faculty of Law

This award-winning six storey building houses the Squire Law Library, Moot Court, five auditoria, seminar rooms, common rooms and faculty administration. The building was the subject of the Architects’ Journal building study on 27 July 1995.

The Jordanian Parliament Building

The complete internal refurbishment of the Jordanian Parliament debating chamber, including changes to improve speech intelligibility, involving acoustic treatment to the dome covering the whole of the chamber. Planning for television and production lighting was undertaken and a desk microphone and public address system were installed in the new chamber.

MGN Live TV

This complex was built on the 24th floor of 1 Canada Square, Canary Wharf. The broadcast facilities include a newsroom/studio, control rooms and edit suites.

National Westminster Bank

Sandy Brown advised NatWest Technical Services and other Technical Groups on electro-acoustics, banking hall and video conference room acoustics, and speech privacy between offices and between customer interview rooms. Sandy Brown also advised NatWest on all aspects of building acoustics, electro-acoustics, noise and vibration in the development of two high street concept branches.

Royal Bank of Scotland Headquarters

The Royal Bank of Scotland’s fit-out at 1 Waterhouse Square, London. The project included two Treasury and Capital markets dealing floors, open-plan and cellular offices, executive offices, conference and meeting facilities and video conferencing facilities. Sandy Brown also provided audio-visual consultancy for the sophisticated boardroom, corporate and mobile presentation facilities.

1994

The Castle Theatre and Arts Centre

The Castle Arts Centre for Wellingborough Borough Council, comprises a 500-seat auditorium with flytower, changing rooms and other back-of-stage facilities, foyer and gallery with bar and restaurant facilities.

Channel Four Headquarters

Headquarters building for the British independent television network Channel 4, which forms the new network transmission centre and handles all quality monitoring of the outgoing signals. The facility contains a 250 sq metre production studio, post- production facilities, cinema and offices.

Chase Manhattan Bank Headquarters

Fit-out of Chase Manhattan’s new headquarters on levels three and four of Vintners Place in London, which includes dealing areas, offices, senior management suite, auditorium, conference and training facilities.

Edinburgh Festival Theatre

Revitalisation of the existing Grade B listed auditorium of the Empire Theatre, maintaining its basic virtues of size and acoustic performance, but increasing the stage area (now one of the largest in the UK), orchestra pit and back-of-house facilities to accommodate any size of performance imaginable. The Edinburgh Festival Theatre is now one of the world’s leading auditoria for opera, ballet and other types of musical event.

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Goldman Sachs, Frankfurt

Fit-out of accommodation including dealing rooms of about 280m2 and offices on the 22nd floor of the Messeturm building, Frankfurt.

1993

Gulf Conference Centre, Riyadh

This centre was purpose-built for the 1993 annual conference of the Gulf Co-operation Council. The design and construction of this opulent and impressive conference facility, including an auditorium, cinema and conference rooms, was completed within 11 months.

Lycee Albert Canus

The School on the Cote d’Azur houses 1,000 students. The building was described in detail in the Building Study in the RIBA Journal of October 1993.

NEC Hall 10

An extension of the National Exhibition Centre (NEC) at Birmingham. It consists of four new exhibition halls totaling 30,000m2 with an additional 10,000m2 of ancillary areas.

United Nations Conference Centre, Bangkok

The UN Conference Centre in Bangkok provides extensive conference facilities for the United Nations and for UN-ESCAP (the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific). The Centre includes five conference halls, the largest holding 1,000 delegates, all with simultaneous interpretation facilities, electronic voting, speech reinforcement and full IT & TV facilities.

1992

Imperial College London, Clore Theatre

A state-of-the-art lecture theatre for teaching, and major presentations and lectures.

1991

Air Lyndhurst Recording Studios

Beatles producer George Martin’s Air Lyndhurst Studios were converted from a Grade II listed church and missionary school in Hampstead designed by Alfred Waterhouse. The complex comprises world class recording facilities for film scoring, rock and pop, orchestral work and post-production.

Sheraton Hotel, Antalya

The Antalya Sheraton Hotel is a ten-floor 450 bedroom luxury hotel on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey. The hotel contains conference facilities, meeting rooms, a casino, a supper club and all other facilities expected in a luxury hotel.

BRIT Performing Arts and Technology School

The BRIT School in Croydon specialises in training for the performing arts. The building comprises recording studios, music practice rooms, dance studios, a TV/drama studio, radio studio and a multi-purpose performance space.

Church of Christ the Cornerstone

Sandy Brown has advised on both the acoustics and on speech reinforcement in this multi-denominational church.

Sir Paul McCartney Studio

Refurbishment and enlargement of the recording studio at Hog Hill Mill, together with sound insulation of the barn to prevent noise reaching nearby dwellings and thus allow its use for night-time rehearsals.

Worldwide Television News studios

Conversion of a warehouse in Camden Town into TV studios. In addition to the distribution of international news, WTN provides live weather reports to independent TV networks. There are two studios which are both floated to limit noise and vibration from a busy passenger and freight railway line alongside the building and an underground railway below.

1990

Channel Tunnel and Terminals (UK AND French)

Sandy Brown was responsible for the selection and positioning of the loudspeakers for emergency and public address in the main and service tunnels and in all vehicle control areas of the two terminals.

Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

The Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, at the intersection of Buchanan Street and Sauchiehall Street, was opened by the Princess Royal on October 1990 and provided a long-awaited replacement for St Andrew’s Hall, one of the great classical auditoria. The concert hall seats 2500 in an arena format: the balcony extends to merge with the raised choir seating to surround the stage; at stalls level the main body of seating faces the stage with peripheral seating echoing the balcony arrangement; the first eleven rows of stalls seating can be removed completely on air pallets or rearranged to surround an alternative performance area; the stage is fully adjustable with mechanical lifts to accommodate a variety of orchestra and performance layouts.

ITN Studios and Headquarters

The new headquarters building for Independent Television News in Gray’s Inn Road. This building contains four studios and all back-up facilities for ITN’s UK and international news operation, as well as a large atrium and office accommodation.

Project Decade

1980 - 89

1988

MTV Europe, AirTV

Built for use by MTV’s European operation, the facility contains a TV production studio together with control rooms. The studio is fully floated on elastomeric bearings to eliminate noise and vibration from the London Underground railway which runs just below.

1986

Bank of England

Refurbishment of the Gild-edged securities dealing rooms. Independent acoustic elements were used so as to avoid altering the existing intricate room surfaces.

Corn Exchange, Cambridge

The Corn Exchange in Cambridge was built in 1875, and used for a variety of events until 1981 when it was closed following objections from neighbours to noise caused by live bands and complaints about the state of the building. We were engaged to advise on the subsequent renovation and refurbishment to form a concert venue. A balcony was introduced to increase the seating capacity. Major considerations were optimising the acoustic quality of the space, achieving low noise levels from the ventilation system (which has externally routed ductwork because of the Grade II listed building constraints), and upgrading the sound insulation of the building envelope, including fitting secondary glazing to the large window areas, and replacing glazed roof areas. A quadratic residue diffuser is installed on the rear stage wall, believed to be the first use in a concert hall in the UK.

Flaine Fort, France

School of music comprising a 450-seat concert hall, 30 music practice rooms and three rehearsal rooms.

Sultan Qaboos University, Oman

Sultan Qaboos University campus comprises 272,250m2 of buildings constructed in a 2,717 acre site in a valley at the foothills of the Oman Mountains, 40 km from Muscat. The project includes TV and radio studios and control rooms, VT editing rooms, lecture theatre, medical TV theatres and 400 seat auditorium, a 700 seat conference centre, and a 450 seat theatre with conference facilities.

1985

Al Bustan Palace Inter-Continental Hotel, Oman

A large luxury hotel and conference centre complex with special facilities for the Sultan of Oman and his guests. It was opened in October 1985 for the Gulf Co-operation Council meeting.

Lloyd's of London

Located in the heart of the City of London’s financial district, Lloyd’s is at the centre of the world’s insurance market. The building, 84 sq. metres high to the top of atrium consists of a series of 16 sq.metre wide concentric galleries overlooking a central atrium. Each gallery may be used either as part of the underwriting room or as office space. All services, lifts, toilets and columns are placed outside the building to provide completely unobstructed internal space.

Madame Tussaud's

Acoustic design of the ‘Super Stars’ exhibition to provide acoustic separation between adjacent loud rock music exhibits whilst maintaining free public circulation between them.

Putra World Trade Centre, Malaysia

The centre contains a large Plenary Hall seating 4,000, two conference rooms each seating 1,000, and 13 small conference rooms each seating 60. Also part of the complex is a 12,300 sq. metre exhibition area and 42 floor office tower. The Plenary Hall has one of the largest fully floating floors in the world to ensure that its use for sports does not affect the conference facilities below.

1984

W H Smith Headquarters

W H Smith’s award-winning corporate headquarters in Swindon.

1983

Latchmere Leisure Pool

Sports complex including gym, sports hall and swimming pool.

St David's Hall

The National Concert Hall of Wales, St David’s Hall, provides an exciting acoustic environment for orchestral music while also serving as the venue for a wide range of other events. An independent acoustic survey in 1998, by American acoustician Leo Beranek, ranked St David’s Hall in the top eight concert halls in the world, and the only one of these to have been designed in the 20th century. It is one of Europe’s most televised venues and it is in this auditorium that the Cardiff Singer of the Year is staged every two years.

TV-am

TV-am was the first national commercial breakfast television in the UK. The Camden Town canal-side premises contain 100m2 and 300m2 TV studios together with technical areas and offices. Terry Farrell’s stunning building topped by egg-cups became an icon. TV-am had a difficult start, grew to be very successful but finally closed in 1992. Its studios were taken over by MTV.

1982

National Theatre, Qatar

The National Theatre in Doha comprises an auditorium for theatre and conferences, ancillary areas, and an office block. The auditorium which seats 500 is equipped with speech reinforcement, simultaneous interpretation and full audio-visual systems. A 1:50 acoustic model of the auditorium was used to optimise the acoustic design.

1981

London Weekend Television

London Weekend Television (LWT) started in 1968 and moved from Wembley to these new studios in 1972. LWT produced such well known programmes as Upstairs Downstairs, The Professionals, Dempsey & Makepeace and The South Bank Show, and then merged with Carlton in 2001. The studios are now known as The London Studios.

1980

BBC New Broadcasting House & Studio 7

New Broadcasting House, the BBC Regional HQ, includes 3 radio drama suites, a radio suite, a sound dubbing suite and dead-room, a production TV studio, and Studio 7 – the Classical Music and Public Performance Studio. The BBC website states: “Renowned world-wide for its excellent acoustics, Studio 7 is home to the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. The Halle Orchestra and record companies such as BMG Classics, Chandos, Decca, and Deutsche Gramophon are among the regular clients using this excellent recording studio.”

Jebel Ali Hotel, Dubai

This luxury Hotel and Conference Centre contains a 600m2 conference suite which can be divided into four separate areas (in six configurations) using moving sound-insulating partitions.