The Porto Arts Club

Brief

A cultural venue in a historically sensitive building in Porto, running programming across a main gallery, a bar, a reception gallery and the circulation between them. Four spaces with four different acoustic jobs, in a building where the fabric sets the terms.

Constraint

The ceiling could not carry the weight of hardware, and it was closed. Between them those two facts remove the entire vocabulary a system designer would normally reach for. No ceiling hangs, no in-ceiling units, no access to route through a void.

The terrace leaked. Low frequency in the main gallery had to be sufficient for the room while being positioned so that energy did not find its way out, which is a placement problem before it is a specification one.

And the banquette seating had been ordered and built before we were commissioned, so the obvious low frequency positions were unavailable.

Appointed at Stage 5, we were designing into a building that had already made most of its decisions.

Design response

With the ceiling ruled out, the system went onto the walls, using a bespoke mounting mechanism developed for the building rather than a catalogue bracket. That solved the load path without asking the ceiling to do anything, and allowed positions to be chosen for the room rather than for the fixing.

Leakage was addressed with acoustic curtain installation, which treats the opening rather than the source and preserves the terrace as a usable part of the venue rather than something to be closed off.

Low frequency positioning was negotiated. With the seating fixed, the available positions were a short list, and the right ones were arrived at through discussion with the interior design team rather than by either side asserting priority. That is the part of this project worth reading twice. At Stage 5, the outcome is not decided by what the acoustics require. It is decided by whether the acoustic consultant and the design team can find the position that costs the room least.

Each space was specified for its own function rather than treated as a share of a single distributed system, which is what allows a gallery, a bar and a reception room to hold entirely different atmospheres in the same building.

Integration

Wall mounting positions and the bespoke mechanism were resolved against the existing fabric and the interior scheme. Circulation coverage was specified so that movement between spaces reads as a transition rather than a series of edges.

Outcome

Four spaces with four distinct acoustic characters inside one historically sensitive building, delivered without ceiling intervention and without altering completed interior work.