Nottingham Student Cinema Installation

Welcome to another Cre8tive Rooms project and something a little different for us! This is the incredible Prestige student accommodation in Nottingham city centre. We were contracted to install a tonne of awesome tech for the students here including an epic fourteen-seater cinema and countless speakers for the various social areas. Above all else this system had to be student proof and super easy to use so naturally, Control4 was the chosen interface. This allowed us to program straightforward controls for the staff, as well as restricted zone-by-zone access for the residents.

The cinema is certainly the centre piece of this project from an AV perspective. Whilst the design had to remain fairly robust, the height of this room allowed us to get creative with our joinery and build three tiers for seating as well as a coffered ceiling. This is a 7.2.4 Dolby Atmos setup powered by our friends at Artcoustic. This equates to three speakers behind the screen, four surrounds, two subs at the rear and four overhead speakers for Atmos. The operation of this room is purposely very restricted. A wall mounted iPad controls the colour of the hidden LED mood lighting and the single video source which is an Apple TV. The rest of the lighting is controlled by a wall switch. Nice and simple from an operation and a maintenance perspective.

Various audio zones make up the remainder of this project combined with some carefully thought-out programming. The main purpose of the audio is to provide background music in the various social hubs around the building. This includes outdoor audio on the roof terrace, ceiling speakers in the gym and dining room and feature pendant speakers in the function room and reception. Due to the public nature of the premises, the audio source is restricted to a commercial media streaming service to conform with licensing regulations. The control of the audio then would become the main focal point.

Once the building was dividing into individual zones, we had to define who could control the music in each area, and how this would be done. Some areas such as reception would be for the staff only, but others such as the private dining area could be controlled by the residents. A clever solution which we implemented in the laundry room and on the roof terrace was to activate the music for thirty minute intervals using a custom programmed switch, circumventing the need for someone to manually turn the music off in these areas. Overall, this has been a fantastic project to work on with some new and exciting challenges. We look forward to showing you the next one!