Housed in the historic former Sheffield Bank Headquarters, a three-screen auditorium cinema has been built inside an existing listed building by Curzon Cinema Group. Farrat were approached by the Architect, Unick, early in the design and specification stage following working together on similar Curzon Cinema projects in the past, to design a suitable box-in-box acoustic isolation system that was sympathetic to both the beautiful architectural features of the old building that were to be retained and it’s structural load capacity.
The design intent by was for all of the internal architectural features and finishes of the old bank to be retained; with Auditoria 1 to feature the large double height volume of the main bank hall and Auditoria 2 and 3 to be constructed within the confines of the existing primary structure. Above the auditoriums would be a bar with direct access to a south facing roof terrace which would include the provision for outdoor screening. Therefore acoustic isolation of the floors, seating and internal walls was essential to ensure that noise and vibration from each auditorium was contained at source.
Due to the retro-fit nature of the project, the structure was not strong enough to support the weight of a concrete cinema structure typically used, so Farrat’s Lightweight Floating Floor system and Raked Seating Isolation (TISS) system were selected as the most suitable solutions. Farrat Lightweight Partition Isolation (PLAS) was also built into the design to reduce auditoria to auditoria flanking noise.
For technical details of each of the high-performance sound insulation systems used in this project, please click our resources the below:
- Lightweight Floating Floor system
- Raked Seating Isolation (TISS) system
- Lightweight Partition Isolation (PLAS) System
For specification details, please download from RIBA NBS here.
