Meyer Sound Constellation enhances learning at Aarhus School of Architecture

On the new campus of the Aarhus School of Architecture a solution has been installed Meyer Sound Constellation, made up of 13 D-Mitri network platform modules together with 71 full-range speakers and 14 compact subwoofers.

Inaugurated at the end of last year, the Aarhus School of Architecture in Denmark has a new campus that has been equipped to educate future architects in all elements, both auditory and visual. Meyer Sound Constellation has been a key platform in the building's AV infrastructure.

This is one of the most prestigious institutions of its kind in Europe and its history dates back to 1965. Before the construction of the new campus, the facility was spread throughout the city in nine separate locations.

The new main campus building consists of four floors and brings together the nine addresses under one roof, leveraging advanced AV technologies to provide optimal communication in the classroom and have solutions for remote learning.

A Meyer Sound Constellation acoustic system has also been included in the main auditorium that allows students to directly experience acoustics..

The consulting and integration company Stouenborg has been in charge of the design, the engineering and installation of all AV systems of the school, with Anders Jørgensen as project manager.

According to Jørgensen, one of the main objectives was to ensure that state-of-the-art technology was applied to improve communication and not to impose annoying obstacles.. A good example is the acoustic flexibility offered by Constellation, an active acoustics system comprising 13 network platform modules D-Mitri along with 71 small full-range speakers and 14 compact subwoofers.

"Here we have a large auditorium that often functions as a conference room", comments Jørgensen, "And with Constellation we can create an optimized teaching environment for effortless two-way communication.. With Voice Lift and Q function&Constellation's A has clear two-way communication, as if I were in a small classroom".

Although it was not part of the original task, a common understanding was quickly reached that Constellation's acoustic flexibility could be used as a tool to strengthen the didactic foundation for teaching architecture students and giving them an idea of what acoustics means in a teaching environment..

"Traditionally, the teaching of acoustics in architecture schools is conceptually and visually descriptive", says Jørgensen. "A teacher can explain how to change the size, the shape or materials of a room affects acoustics, but students can't hear the differences. With Constellation, various room designs can be acoustically modeled and demonstrate how different architectural options will affect the acoustics of the rooms.".

Learning "didaktek"

A smaller learning environment, called didaktek (of the Greek roots of “teach” and “technology”) provides a different optimal immersive learning experience with projection screens on all four walls.

Each display is paired with a speaker Ultra X40 of Meyer Sound that locates the sound source on the active screen. Sound can be moved from one screen to another or even moved spatially to any part of the room, using the spatial sound design and mixing tool Spacemap Go by Meyer Sound, iPad-based.

Two subwoofers USW-210P expand bandwidth as needed to achieve low-frequency impact.

A movable partition between the auditorium and didaktek can be removed to form an open space with seating for up to 400 people.

The Constellation system has special configurations that allow the two rooms to also be combined as a single coherent acoustic response..

Seven smaller rooms have each been equipped with two Meyer Sound speakers UP-4slim.

"These rooms are often used to stream interactive presentations or seminars on Zoom or other platforms", adds Jørgensen. "Since remote voice microphone pickup may vary, high intelligibility in the room was vital. With UP-4slims we have an STI rating (speech transmission index) between 0,83 and 0.92".

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