Suffolk, UK (November 7, 2013)—White Mark Ltd will reconstruct and modernize the recording studios and control rooms at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Poland after winning a major international concept design competition.
Since 1963, the university has been headquartered in a five-story building in Warsaw. Originally designed to take into account the requirements of the Sound Engineering department, the building has studios in the basement as well as a concert hall and teaching facilities on the other floors. Fifty years after its completion, the entire complex now needs significant updating.
The Fryderyk Chopin University held an international competition and encouraged entries from acoustic and architectural companies from around the world. The brief was complex as there were a large number of rooms to take into consideration, including two recording studios, an orchestral studio, various editing suites, lecture theatres and a master control room linking all of these facilities together. There was also a requirement to design a Dolby Atmos mixing studio, the first of its kind in Poland.
Alan Cundell, director of UK-based studio and design consultancy White Mark, says, “The main issues we faced were optimally configuring the large number of rooms that needed to be included in our submission and ensuring that our technical proposals were both appropriate to the University’s educational requirements and reflected current industry practice. The time frame was very short and we had to pull out all the stops to meet the deadline.”
To ensure that the competition was entirely fair, all designs had to be submitted anonymously. White Mark’s main competition came from a design consortium consisting of team members from Canada, Poland and Germany. Judging was carried out on a percentage basis, with marks allocated in three sections: compliance with guidelines, innovation and feasibility. White Mark’s overall rating was 92%.
White Mark
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