Author: Thomas @ ARD

I started working on this project in 2015 when in Hong Kong. The ground breaking ceremony happened shortly after I left.

The HKUST-SHAW Auditorium, designed by Henning Larsen Architects, opened this week with the HKPhil orchestra.

From what I have heard (second hand due to Covid travel restrictions) the “acoustics are terrific”.

With a 840-seats, this hall was designed for orchestral music. The acoustic volume makes it perfectly suited to chamber, early and moderate sized symphony orchestras.

The acoustic idea was to propose a concert hall with less diffusion than what is seen in many contemporary halls. One can easily overdo diffusion out of precaution. But this over-engineering converts too much early energy into reverberant sound.

The approach taken balances carefully the early energy (clarity, orchestra presence) with the late (room presence and reverberation). The result is a clear sound, with a good sense of attack, good localisation and enough reverberation for the stop chords.

To make this happen, a thorough 3D investigation was needed, making sure that the apparently rectangular, vertical and concave smooth walls are in fact none of the above to eliminate flutters and focuses. Grasshopper was, as often, my preferred tool to accomplish this task.

The whole team, including my ex-colleagues at MDA Hong Kong, should be proud of the outcome.

Read more about it here.

Ice-hockey is a loud game! I am not just talking about the skates on the ice and the impacts, I am also referring to the fans.

Many historical and regional ice-hockey arenas in Scandinavia have low ceilings, steep audience tiers and almost no sound absorptive treatment. They are full, loud and intense places. The speech intelligibility is low, but no one bothers because the atmosphere is electrifying.

One stands out of the pack and it is the extraordinary Globen in Stockholm. It has a ceiling height of 80m above the ice, a large exposed dome towering above a 13,000-seat capacity, much of it on low rake retractable seating.

The volume is so great that no crowd of fans can truly excite the place. Energetic chants dissipate quickly in such volume. Sound reflections take half a second to come back and then only their low frequency components are audible.

It sounds dull and unresponsive. It is really hard work to cheer for your team, let alone hear what they are doing.

Luckily, ARD has investigated and spent a good deal of time over the last months developing with world-class partners a solution to bring excitement to both Stockholm teams and their fans.

Stay tuned for more news on this!

Today we are finally reviewing the interior design for a 1200-seat grand theatre. We always start with a review of the current geometry performance. Understanding how the room works and the potential for each surface and architectural element is critical to us.

We always start with one of the most critical zone, close to the sources. In today’s case, the sources are on stage and in the orchestra pit.

We make sure that the surfaces promote good communication between pit and stage. This is not only relevant for western opera. In XIQU performances, the lead musician in the pit and performers on stage are in constant visual and aural communication, giving each other cues for rhythms and phrases.

These surfaces are not necessarily dedicated to this reflection path, they also are designed to project overhead reflections for the audience in the stalls. Although such reflections do not assist with envelopment, they boost clarity, speech intelligibility and early loudness. They promote the “Presence” of the performer, highlight the precision of the work and the attack.

The design and construction of the 1200-seat multipurpose Grand Theatre in Hanzhong is going at full speed!

We are proud of being part of the team, responsible for the room acoustic design. But maybe what makes this project unique is that the main auditorium will be naturally ventilated.

That is right! Four large shafts will link directly the grand theatre to the outside. The average temperature and humidity in the city was found ideal for such development.

A unique feature that will actually meet the needs for energy saving, sustainability objectives as well as COVID-19 most stringent recommendation: 100% fresh air 100% of the time!

We are proud of be part of this!

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Did you know that orchestras have a nomenclature to precisely define the size of each section of the orchestra?

Here is an example:

3222.4231.T.1P.Str 12,10,8,7,5

In layman terms, the first 4 digits tell us that there are 3 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets and 2 bassoons.

The second 4 digits translate into 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones and 1 tuba.

Then you have 1 timpani and 1 percussionist.

Finally, the string instruments with 12 first violins, 10 second violins, 8 violas, 7 cellos and 5 basses.

And here what it looks like:

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It is good to be back into the thick of it: performing arts design. Today, it is a 1200 seat theatre. And there is a lot of work to be done.

First, this will be analysed in Rhino and Grasshopper for acoustic volume estimation, sightlines, ray-tracing and estimations of source strength (G), sound clarity (C80, C50) and the general early efficiency of the room.

Then, the model will be optimised to achieve the most even coverage of early lateral reflections and finally, we will run simulations to quantify the changes.

We will post updates as things progress. The ray-tracing has seriously evolved since our last publication on it. Stay tuned!

The ODEON license is here! We are now ready to help with simulations! Call if you need support with your project.

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Although it didn’t win this time, UNStudio has revealed the design proposal for the Shenzhen Opera House. The team at UNStudio Shanghai and I worked several months on this and the result would have been a great development for Shenzhen.

(Click on the image to visit their detailed page)

Today, we pushed “launch” and it felt great!

Tomorrow, we will continue to populate the site, make it clearer, more useable.

We also plan to have a Download section for all these generative design tools we do on the side. So please get in touch if you want us to look at something in particular!