Located in one of the City of London’s most architecturally significant areas, Barts Square is a high-end residential and commercial development by Sheppard Robson for Helical.

We were commissioned to design and install an 18-person private cinema room that the residents can enjoy either by booking their own event or by attending a regular screening arranged by the concierge service.

Barts square

Winner of the 2019 Housing Design Awards for best Completed Project.

To further enhance usability, and minimise the load on the concierge staff if users have questions, onscreen instructions can be pulled up at any time.

An immersive experience is created with a specially designed 9.4 surround sound system with in-wall Sonance Reference speakers, Sunfire in-wall subwoofers and Marantz pre-power amplification. Acoustically transparent fabric panels installed in front of the speakers provide a sleek and elegant finish.

The cinema room has been carefully designed to be user-friendly and robust enough to accommodate the needs of hundreds of different residents without any need for training. User experience has been enhanced by designing the equipment rack to provide users with access to only the components they need.

A custom Crestron GUI menu system has been designed and programmed with a look and feel that matches Barts Square’s branding; it ensures use of the cinema is as intuitive and straightforward as possible.

The projection screen is an acoustically transparent Screen Excellence model, and the projector is by Digital Projection. 4k resolution ensures a sharp image across a screen that is almost 5m wide. Laser technology provides instant-on so that, when residents first switch the system on, they are not left wondering if it is working: by contrast, traditional bulb projectors need time to warm up. These particular laser projectors are designed to work maintenance-free for tens of thousands of hours, making them ideal for this application.

To complete the cinematic experience, we integrated a mood lighting system with one-touch dimming and control.

We delivered this project on time and under budget despite the challenge of our client’s main contractor being replaced mid-project. Thrilled with our installation of the private cinema room and also with our work ethic, this client subsequently recommended us to the residential division of its business.

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