Michael O’Hare’s ‘The Man Behind The Curtain’, Leeds
Background
iKoustic were contacted following an acoustic report carried out by Nova Acoustics on the internal acoustics of the restaurant which had begun to receive complaints about the reverberation levels of the room (4.2 seconds), this resulted in poor acoustics caused by any conducted noises from the open kitchen and conversations to bounce around the room, this lead to a negative experience of the Michelin Star venue.
We followed up with an onsite evaluation to discuss our range of acoustic absorption options we could implement to address the reverberation issues of the restaurant, we wanted to fit our ideas successfully into the current interior design of the venue of which consisted of a range of ambient pendant lighting, monochrome fixtures and unique granite tables.
The restricted and varying head height of the venue brought its own unique challenges and limited us in what we could design, we needed a Sound Absorption system that was slim line, adaptable and semantic to the existing aesthetic of the restaurant.
Solution
Within the ideation phase we came up with a range of concepts/products, spending some time producing visualisations of the concepts and discussing the options with Michael O’Hare himself. Once decided on one primary acoustic concept, consisting of installing our Popped Note™ product on the ceiling with brushed stainless-steel stand-off bolts as a fixing. We also designed and manufactured a bespoke piece of acoustic art for Michael O’Hare that we collaborated on – this was a large black love heart with a lightning bolt in white on top, off setting for a three-dimensional approach.
The open plan design of the restaurant led to a large portion of sound coming from the kitchen and then travelling out into the restaurant, to address this noise issue, we installed black MuteSpace Pro around the entrance to the kitchen to absorb the reflected sound energy.
Results
The resulting installation has provided The Man Behind The Curtain with 30m2 of Class A and Class B absorption throughout the venue, reducing the reverberation time and therefore improving the holistic experience to their customers.
