A new acoustic baffling sculpture designed by London-based architectural practice, Studio Weave, for the atrium of a new seven-storey ward block at Bristol Royal Infirmary, not only provides interest and distraction, but also, say the arts and health consultants who managed the installation, Willis Newson, reduces noise levels and provides patient privacy.
“Suspended above the reception to the hospital’s busy medical assessment unit (MAU) within the new clinical building, the striking, yet functional artwork creates a visual centrepiece to the atrium,” Willis Newson explained. “The acoustic baffling panels absorb sound from activity on the ground level, while providing additional privacy for patients by shielding sightlines from the upper floors.”
The sculpture is inspired by the Terrell Rope Works, a family-run rope and twine business whose house used to sit on the hospital site. The design ‘takes its cue from the dynamic, splaying strands of the rope industry’. Made from 270 acoustic baffling panels, the funnel-shaped design allows patients, staff, and visitors, on the ground floor to still benefit from the light that the atrium provides.
The sculpture has been funded by hospitals charity Above & Beyond’s Golden Gift Appeal, which is raising funds ‘for the creation of a calming, uplifting, and supportive environment for patients, visitors, and staff, through artworks to enhance the redevelopment of Bristol Royal Infirmary’.
The core of the acoustic panels is made from ISOVER RKL-31, a semi-rigid glass wool panel from ISOVER SaintGobain, and the skin from Camira Fabrics’ Lucia FR fire-rated fabric. The panels were bespoke manufactured by Studio Weave’s sub-contractors.
The 270 baffles were suspended from a rope framework made from stainless steel cable and fixings. The cable net structure is an anticlastic cone measuring approximately 8.5 m high, supported at its base by anchorages to the fifth floor slab, and at its head by an elliptical channel ring. The base is rectangular. The angle ring is in turn supported by four cables anchored to the eighth floor slab. The cable net consists of vertical cables which radiate from the centre point at 10 degree intervals, and horizontal hoops fixed to the vertical cables at regular intervals. This creates the ‘funnel’ shape inspired by splaying strands of rope.
Willis Newson managed the artist commission from beginning to end, with the fixings installed by Laing O’Rourke as part of the overall build.
