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It was four years ago that Jamie Stewart, dean of business, education and learning resources at the Higher Colleges of Technology (HCT) in Dubai, stepped into the college’s new 1,000-person auditorium – and realised that he had a big problem on his hands.
The auditorium was a key component of a million dirham extension of HCT’s Dubai Women’s College campus, but as Stewart stood on the stage and clapped his hands in an impromptu sound test, he discovered that its acoustic properties were far from ideal.
As the auditorium began to host events, the extent of the problem became increasingly apparent. “When you were standing on the stage and you were speaking to the audience, it sounded like you were in a big barn or warehouse,” Stewart explained.
“Speakers couldn’t really understand what was happening. They knew something was wrong and could hear their voice coming back to them and echoing all over the place, and it was very distracting. We could adjust our sound system to compensate for that, but we could only go so far.”
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The acoustics became particularly troublesome when someone in the audience tried to communicate with the person on stage. Any kind of Q&A session would leave the speaker looking largely nonplussed, as they were unable to hear and fully comprehend the questions being asked. “If you were in the audience, you understood completely, but the person at the front couldn’t hear properly,” said Stewart.
Things came to a head last year, when the college hosted the Festival of Thinkers, a high-profile conference that gathers Nobel Laureates and other reputable speakers. “We had a few Nobel Laureates on the stage, alongside other distinguished speakers, as part of a six-member panel. Finally, one of the members of the panel was asked a question and he ended up saying: ‘I’m not going to answer any more questions because I can’t understand what people are asking and I can’t even understand what the people on the panel beside me are saying’,” Stewart recalled. “We knew something needed to be done.”
By this time, Stewart had already spoken to a series of specialists, in the hope that they could offer some kind of solution to his acoustical woes. One suggestion was that protrusions be added to the ceiling above the stage, and that the stage’s hardwood floor be covered with carpeting.
“So, we put the carpet down, and we shut the facility down for another three or four months as they redid the ceiling. They opened it up again, and we went and stood on the stage and clapped, and the problem hadn’t really been solved. After that we continued to have groups come and talk to us about whether it was the ceiling or the cladding or the sound system, but we were still talking to people who were guessing at how to solve the problem,” he said.
“I didn’t have any confidence that we wouldn’t just spend another pile of money and end up with the same problem. Another issue was that some of the solutions being suggested were very expensive and involved going back and redesigning the whole facility.”
Eventually, Stewart came into contact with Acoulite, a Dubai-based supplier of acoustic and lighting solutions, and for the first time, felt a sense of confidence. “We felt like we had finally found someone who could solve the problem.”
According to Martin Grove, account manager at Acoulite, 90% of projects undertaken by the company’s acoustic division are retro-fits, where a space has to be revisited because proper attention wasn’t paid to acoustics in the first place. “Obviously, with acoustics, it is harder to build it into a retro-fit and for a client to find the budget. So we are trying to work with designers and fit-out companies to show them how you can build this kind of thing into the design.”
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