Hesketh Bank Christian Centre is a community church serving Hesketh Bank and Tarleton in West Lancashire. Completed in 2008, the Centre comprises a multifunctional Main Hall, Reception with Cafeteria, offices and teaching rooms.
Typical of many contemporary interior spaces, high levels of noise reverberation created by the hard acoustically reflective surfaces, marred the function and use. We were asked to assess the problem and provide a solution including office soundproofing.
As always, proper consideration was firstly given to activities within each space. The diverse range of uses for the Main Hall – Christian worship, live music and song, dancing and light sports - called for a solution across a wide range of sound frequencies; for the Reception & Cafeteria, speech clarity was the predominant concern, with reduced cutlery clatter on Café tables.
Our calculations showed that suitably reduced reverberation times could be achieved, and reflecting the client’s preference to avoid treatment being applied to the ceilings (so to be wall based), and for this to be visually discrete - panels to match colour as walls.
Sonata Vario panels fitted on mounting brackets provided the solution. The client’s chosen fabric facing to the panels sympathetically responded to the existing aesthetics.
