Concert Wall

Plywood acoustic wall for concerts in a car park

Location: Peckham, Southwark, London

, UK

Status: Built

Area: 33m² / 360ft²

Client: Bold Tendencies

2016

In 2016 the disused multi-storey car park in Peckham hosted the first BBC Proms performance ever staged in a car park. For Bold Tendencies, which has run concerts on its top floors since 2011, we lined the deck with a 33-metre plywood acoustic wall. The raw concrete shell had worked against the musicians. Working with the resident orchestra and acousticians Sound Space Vision, we tuned a concertinaed birch screen so that audiences can properly hear the music made there, and it has been in use every season since.

Shallow valleys at the centre of the screen unfold into larger, deeper bays at the outer edges: the geometry is tuned to improve the playing experience and reflect sound out towards the audience. Birch plywood in its natural state brings warmth to the in-situ concrete. Angled units meet at an anodised aluminium profile, fixed back to a CNC-cut zig-zag substructure. The fire exit and green room doorways are marked by walnut-lined portals, a moment of richness that sets them apart from the raw structure around them.

You can still hear the trains passing outside, but the wall has improved both the acoustics and the appearance of the space, holding its own against the building's rough character.