England’s Oxford University has opened two Harvard-style lecture theatres within its Blavatnik School of Government, where Renkus-Heinz Iconyx digitally steered array loudspeakers provide the sound reinforcement.
Originally based across three temporary sites, the Blavatnik School of Government is named after benefactor Blavatnik, a Russian-born US citizen now based in the UK. Courtesy of his £75m donation, the school is now housed in its own permanent home, designed by architects Herzog and de Meuron. The building has been designed for minimal environmental impact while offering flexible, contemporary teaching spaces, including the two lecture theatres. Its challenge is to help create the next generation of political thinkers.
But while the horseshoe configuration brings students and lecturers closer together, it created a challenge of its own – understanding the lectures. The combination of a curved rear wall, metal-framed ceilings and wooden floors all served to create the kind of reverberation that can confuse even the brightest mind. In response, pairs of Renkus-Heinz Iconyx IC-8-RII digitally steered array loudspeakers serve each theatre, having been discretely installed into recesses at either side of the lecturer’s podium. Custom colour-matched help the speakers to go unnoticed, as they make certain that hard, reflective surfaces are avoided and that every lecture is delivered with flawless intelligibility.
UK-based Renkus-Heinz distributor Polar Audio was brought into the project by consultant Hewshott International, while UK-based systems integrator Snelling Business Systems conducting the installation. ‘Our experiences of installing Iconyx into some very acoustically challenging heritage sites left us in no doubt that it was the ideal solution for the school,’ says Stuart Leader, Installation Manager at Polar Audio. ‘Although it’s a new building and the lecture theatres met every environmental and educational requirement, the nature of their design meant that they were significantly acoustically compromised. The Iconyx speakers overcame the potential pitfalls to the great satisfaction of the client. Given that communication sits at the heart of the Blavatnik global vision, Iconyx is playing its own part in that respect by delivering audio clarity in a crucial area of the school’s function.’
‘The school is impressed with the qualities of the Iconyx speakers,’ says Snelling Business Systems Sales Manager, Steve Royans. ‘They offer a clarity that is absolutely essential in this multi-faceted academic environment and achieve this in spite of the acoustic challenges presented by the rooms.’
