Project spotlight.
Triple win at the Acoustic Awards.
Image: The Life and Mind Building, Oxford. Further project images can be found on our asset library.
Hoare Lea are no strangers to success at the Acoustics & Noise Consultants (ANC) Acoustic Awards, but this was to be a bumper year, as we picked up not one, not two, but three awards!
Cambridge House.
WINNER
CBSO Shireland.
WINNER
The Life and Mind Building (LaMB).
WINNER
Cambridge House.
Cambridge House is being brought back to life as a luxury hotel and apartment residence. Constructed between 1756–1761, the Grade I listed building retains many of its original features.
Situated near the Piccadilly, Jubilee and Victoria underground lines, noise and vibration from rail presented a very clear challenge fulfilling a brief for low levels of ground-borne noise within noise-sensitive spaces. This project required the retrofit of full building isolation to the main 270-year-old structure. We believe this is a world first in terms of retrofit isolation at this scale.
This project demonstrates comprehensive building isolation, auralisation and modelling. It required innovative load transfer and would not have been achievable without excellent collaboration between the architects, engineers and the bearing suppliers. It is rare to see this level of retrofit in a Grade 1 listed building, so the project shows how heritage buildings can continue to fulfil modern uses.
The client said:
“[Hoare Lea] conceived and then developed in detail, a range of measures to manage both the airborne noise and the ground-borne vibration; the latter being a particularly innovative design, given the need to incorporate a suppression system which maintained the Grade 1 and 2 listed interiors and utilised the existing 300-year-old load-bearing structure.”
CBSO Shireland Academy.
Repurposing an office building into a new specialist home for Shireland Collegiate Academy, the first state school in England associated with a professional orchestra, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO).
This project was driven by a sustainable, pragmatic approach to re-use the existing building form, materials, and services where possible. We utilised the existing atrium to form a triple-height performance hall for classical music rehearsal, performance and recording, and another larger hall that prioritised room acoustics.
The academy itself aims to generate more evidence for the benefits that high-quality, practical music study can bring. The completed project has achieved the fine balancing act of a cost-effective acoustic design, an inspirational venue for educational use, and a high-quality acoustic space for recording and performances.
The outcome is particularly impressive due to the building being situated next to a busy road, and the exacting requirements of the CBSO to maintain their reputation of excellence. Ultimately, they were very pleased, saying:
“Our performance hall is an inspirational venue with excellent acoustic performance; our practice rooms give students the opportunity to hone their skills while minimising disruption to others; and our music classrooms, recording studios and choral space provide students with facilities that exceeds what would be found in many other schools.”
Life & Mind Building.
Although widely used by other disciplines, digital engineering tools are still in their infancy for acoustic consultants. This project demonstrates that digital engineering and BIM can and should be an integral part of acoustic design.
The Life & Mind Building will be the new home for Oxford University’s Experimental Psychology and Biology departments. It will transform the relationship between the two sciences and promote cross discipline collaboration in the emergent fields. Through close engagement with the building users, we were able to define a bespoke acoustic strategy for the building. This was incorporated into the BIM model, which was used to generate ‘acoustic strategy layout’ drawings, a new way of presenting acoustic design and performance information.
The judges said:
“This has helped to break down the problems and silos that result from reports containing specific information on only one element of work. This project is revolutionary and shows how the industry should provide information in future to achieve greater visibility of acoustics in the built environment.”
We provided Acoustics, Fire Engineering, Lighting, MEP, Performance, Security, Sustainability and VT services for this project. Special thanks to the BIM managers for their collaboration with the Acoustics team on this project, as well as Tony Grady, Rob Spry and Matthew Partridge from our Graphics and Engineering Visualisation teams for their help creating the presentation.