Kosta Boda overcomes acoustic challenge

People in glass hotels should not install av systems: it’s not quite truethe the proverb but the sentiment is the same. When the Kosta Boda Art Hotel in Sweden, a self-proclaimed ‘Kingdom of Glass’, received the EUR24.5m go-ahead, audiophiles across Sweden woke up in a cold sweat – how could such an unusual build maintain its sonic integrity?

The hotel is the country’s first to be constructed entirely from glass and stone. It boasts a bar made of four tonnes of glass. And the swimming pool even features underwater art for its guests. It is situated in the province of Smaland, in the Kosta Boda glass producer’s region.

The project was conceived by entrepreneur the New Wave Group and co-funded by the Municipality of Lessebo. Some EUR4.9m of the build cost was spent on glass alone.

CEO Torsten Jansson headed up the project, but it was New Wave’s then managing director, Mattias Landgren, who oversaw the technical fit-out to ensure that the mood and audio atmosphere matched the sophistication of the different rooms.

Landgren approached local Harman consumer products dealer, Jacob Syre’n from Expert Audio & Video. He, in turn, contacted Jan Hedlund from Septon Electronics, the Harman Pro distributor, and the two were soon upgrading the infrastructure to a fully-integrated Harman Pro spec.

Audio would need to be provided for the hotel’s lavish Glass Bar, 10 conference rooms, restaurant, health, yoga, spa and fitness facilities, and indoor and outdoor pools, which are split into seven zones.

Kosta Boda demanded a system that could distribute four sources of background music or sound effects into 21 zones throughout the building, cater for 10 conference rooms with local audio inputs and microphones, and finally be able to mute everything on command from a fire/evacuation system.

SOFTEN THE SOUND

To do all this and maintain natural sounding acoustics, Kosta Barda sales executive Anders Rickardson reveals that, contrary to the build criteria of the hotel itself, good old-fashioned wood was needed to soften the sound.

‘To combat the acoustic problems of the glass, the trick is to combine glass and wood so you avoid echo effects. The music in the hotel will be used as background music and in the bars, gym, spa and lounges, so we need the system to be versatile,’ he says.

‘With 21 different sound areas in one system this sound changes the whole hotel experience. It’s perfect whether you are here for conference, spa, bar, dinner or shopping.’

Septon based its design around a BSS Audio Soundweb London network.

The system takes feeds from 26 amplifier channels, using Crown CDi and CCA series, while four music channels, including an ambient channel for the more meditative areas, provide the appropriate BGM, triggered by four PCs containing the relevant playlists.

The signal distribution hub has been constructed around three technical rooms, including the master control room. A Soundweb London BLU-160 and BLU-120, with configurable I/Os, are set in the main room, with a single BLU-120 plus BLU BOB in each of the other two. These are connected by the BSS BLU-Link, offering 256 channels of low latency, fault-tolerant digital audio bus on a single Cat6 ethernet cable.

Septon office manager Jan Hedlund says that BLU-Link was one of the real selling points of the system, making cabling easier.

‘It was fortunate that during the fit-out BSS introduced its BLU-BOB break out expanders in view of the evolving output requirements. The introduction of two BLU-BOBs provided a highly cost-effective and affordable solution,’ he adds.

The technical team including fit-out and cabling contractors was kept busy, says Vaxjo Elmontage.

Hedlund says: ‘Originally the hotel didn’t have a lot of ideas about sourcing products – a hi-fi solution really wouldn’t have worked with an installation of this complexity.’

The system chosen by the hotel feeds out to multiples of JBL Control Contractor loudspeakers, from Control 29s in the conference room and the Glass Bar annex, where a live stage will be added, down to Control 26CTs in the pool and bar areas.

CONFERENCE FACILITIES

The large conference room is also served by Control 29s running off a CDI 1000 with audio input facilities provided for a CD/DVD player and laptop computer.

The conference facilities require six mic and six separate aux inputs on the Soundweb backbone. Both of the main rooms are equipped with a pair of AKG WMS450 wireless mics.

While on the ground floor, the Soundweb architecture has also been programmed with a separate gain structure for when the Glass Bar is used as an overspill area for the adjacent conference room. ‘It means we can leak out the sound from the conference mics through the bar’s ceiling speakers,’ says Hedlund.

This is controlled from the local BLU-10 programmable touchscreen remote – while the remaining two BLU-10s reside at the dedicated ground floor and first floor reception desks, and offer central control. Meanwhile, seven BLU-3 remotes control local sources in the conference rooms and the pool area.

The three BLU-10 remote panels are connected to a central network via HP ProCurve switch with PoE (Power over Ethernet), eliminating the need for local power supplies.

However, it was the recessing of the bar’s speakers into the undulating, stainless-steel waveform ceiling cladding that provided the biggest challenge, as 12 Control 26s and three Control 19CSTs had to be contoured into a steel backdrop.

Kosta Boda Art Hotel sales executive Anders Rickardsson, who is responsible for the equipment functionality, praises the work of the technical team.

‘They have managed to work within the sensitive design aesthetics by offering a discreet solution, at the same time providing clear, evenly distributed and highly intelligible sound throughout the many different environments within the hotel. Operationally, the flexibility of the system presents us with few difficulties and a number of options.’

As for the hotel itself, with 204 beds spread across 102 rooms the Kosta Boda Art Hotel offers all the luxury one would expect in a 100 per cent glass hotel (which used 100 tonnes of glass in its construction). There are over 1,000 individual works of glass art spread throughout the 10,000 square metre building.

Other glass-related entertainment includes nine art exhibitions (in underwater showcases) featured on the bottom of the pool, while restaurant diners are ‘serenaded’ by skilled Kosta Boda glassblowers – blowing and sculpting glass in front of them.

Adapting to an unusual av critieria pushes av technology forward and promotes innovation. Despite a global recession, the Kosta Boda Art Hotel is evidence that there are no glass ceilings to the industry’s ambition.

KIT LIST

- BSS Soundweb London BLU-160 and BLU-120 signal processors

- JBL Control 29 Contractor loudspeakers

- JBL Control 26CT loudspeakers

- JBL Control 19CST 8in ceiling subs

- JBL Control 24CT loudspeakers

- Crown CDI amps

- Crown CCA amps

- AKG WMS450 wireless mics

- AKG GN30 gooseneck (and CK31 capsule)