Sevenoaks School’s performing arts centre, The Space, was completed in April 2010. The complex provides the school with outstanding facilities for music and drama and cost £13 million to build over 87 weeks.
The Space’s main venue, the Pamoja Hall, has a high ceiling clad in timber and decorative steel that is visually stunning but causes sound to reverberate around the hall, detracting from some performances.
J&C Joel were commissioned to install 20 double-roller motorised acoustic banners within the Pamoja Hall to improve the venue’s acoustics. Each of the acoustic wool serge banners measured three metres wide and had a drop of four metres when fully unfurled.
In order to blend the roller banners with their surroundings the mechanisms were inset into the hall’s roof cavity so that all that is visible when the banners are not in use are slits in the ceiling. The acoustic wool serge banners were also custom dyed to match the venue’s timber cladding.
J&C Joel’s installation team provided a simple hand-held control unit that allows any configuration of acoustic banners to be raised and lowered, allowing technical staff to cater the Pamoja Hall’s acoustics to perfectly complement any performance.
Rolling out quality
Developed in conjunction with Triple E Ltd, J&C Joel’s acoustic motorised roller banners are designed to provide flexible acoustic solutions for performance spaces.
Each banner consists of an aluminium roller, integral singlephase motor with limit controls and black powder coated steel frame.
The fabric used is J&C Joel’s acoustically bonded wool serge, which can be custom, dyed to virtually any colour.
