Life Style Home Theater

The client is a widely travelled family with an eclectic taste in design. The brief was to move away from the stereotypical home cinema aesthetics and have an unconventional space where different members of the family could unwind.

The project is a collaboration between Acoustic Designer Fenil Mehta of White Noise and Architect Shwetang Monani of Avantgarde Design Studio. They wanted to emphasize on the unique elements designed especially for this space through lighting and balancing the space with different materials and textures.

The space is a play on color and texture. As you enter from the far end of the room, the custom made curved hybrid panels immediately stand out. They are precisely machined and finished matte to create diffused and absorbent sound field for the front 2/3rd of the room. The panels are designed to integrate lighting and thus giving both a soft diffused light or a dramatic play on light and shade depending on the intensity.

Custom made Lead loaded limp membranes are effectively used to create inbuilt acoustic panels for bass trapping and broadband absorption on the ceiling as well as front and rear walls. Special sound-blocking membranes have been used in the ceiling to reduce the sound transfer of the Air conditioning into the listening space.

The rear of the room is done in contrast to the curved panels with fabric and matte color finished panels –this blends with a ceiling which has the same texture and gives a profound sense of simplicity which subdues and balances the space. The muted matte finished panels and textured fabric panels helps to create a reverberant surround field which enhances the sound quality and makes it a unique experience for the client where the equipment is used to its full potential.

These panels are calculated and space shifted curved panels made from custom made WPC foam board panels to create a 3-dimensional phase grating diffuser wall. Wells between the diffuser panels are used as absorption cavities, thus making the wall a good hybrid panel with absorption and a phase grating diffusion. Such an arrangement works effectively in frequency,
spatial as well as time domain.

Motorized loungers from FAMA-Italy; give a splash of color on the warm wooden flooring. The whole space exudes understated luxury –clean lines, flushed fabrics panels, acoustic panels with concealed lighting to the large custom rug. Splashes of color and texture on a backdrop of a neutral palate helps bring out the play between excitement and calm.

As Father of Modernism - Louis H. Sullivan said of his design philosophy – form follows function. Here the acoustics and aesthetics have achieved a very rare feat – form marries function. Every element in the room is there for a reason and serves a very specific purpose. The brief of the client was far exceeded both in terms of aesthetics and acoustics.

DETAILS:
Room Size –
18’9” W x 31’6” D x 13’6” H empty shell
17’0” W x 29’7” D x 11’3” H Post-acoustics.
Equipment –
AVR & Processor- Anthem MRX 1120
Power Amplifiers– Anthem MCA 325
Front LCR Speakers -Dali Phantom S280
Surround & Atmos Speakers - Dali H80
Subwoofers - Martin Logan Dynamo 1600X
Projector - Sony VW260es 4K Projector
Screen - 150” Milan Acoustic Transparent 4K
Cabling - Audio Quest
Recliners – Fama Italy

Designers:
Mr. Fenil Mehta, White Noise
Ar. Shwetang Monani, Avantgarde Design Studio Pvt Ltd
Photography: Bhargav Chavda
Site: Rajkot, Gujarat – India