Canada - The University of Toronto Scarborough, established in 1964, is one of the top-ranked universities in Canada. The institution prides itself on finding new ways to create environments in which students can thrive, and their recently built Sam Ibrahim Building is central to this ethos.
The expansive, five-storey building houses lecture halls, faculty offices, collaboration spaces and more. Six ‘feature’ lecture theatres were central to the development: Conveyor, Cave, Keystone, Collaboratorium, Cloud, and the flagship Arrow Group Innovation Hall (formerly known as the Campfire), which features a 360°-seating arrangement. These modern, individually designed spaces all came with the same important audio challenge: the need for outstanding coherence and crystal-clear speech from professors.
To address the task, the university partnered with Contact Distribution and integrator Global Unified Solution Services (Global USS). Together, they designed and installed a bespoke Renkus-Heinz ecosystem into each theatre based on UBX Series passively steered columns and C Series point source loudspeakers for their directivity and sound clarity.
Lead architects CEBRA and ZAS aimed to create an emotionally stimulating study environment that encourages sensory-forward, inclusive learning. According to Bill Coons, director of Contract Distribution: “These rooms look and sound dramatically different from anything I’ve seen to engage the students and make the learning experience more effective and fulfilling.”
“The overarching challenge for us was providing a solution for rooms that were already designed, with cable pathways already in place,” explains John Busza, CTS-D, systems designer at Global USS. “Our installation team therefore had to work with the space they were given, making Renkus-Heinz’s adaptable solutions a perfect fit.”
“I was at an industry event with John early on in the project, and I expressed my concern that the speaker arrays we would be using in the larger feature rooms wouldn’t provide sufficient coverage,” explains Blake Markle, manager, classroom technology and film services at the University of Toronto Scarborough. “These rooms feature 100-200 seats, and they all have irregular ceilings with angles and materials that make working with ceiling or pendant speakers impossible. All we would be able to use were two arrays on the front wall.
“John simply said, ‘I got you. The Renkus-Heinz UBX8 arrays are small but powerful; they will fill the room with sound, and the topmost drivers will reach those back rows.’ Once the installation was far enough along to play some audio in the rooms, I was happy to confirm that he was right. It is great to work with an AV partner who can take your concerns into consideration, offer reassurance that things will be good, and really follow through on that. Choosing the right equipment is one of the ways this is done.”
Four of the lecture theatres each received a pair of UBX8 loudspeakers, whilst the fifth theatre doubled up on this approach. These pre-steered passive column loudspeakers deliver precise coverage, intelligibility and exceptional sound quality. 30 CX61 loudspeakers were chosen for the Arrow Group Innovation Hall due to their wide dispersion, the flexibility of a rotatable horn and a subwoofer size suitable for the vocal range. “The overall calibre of audio intelligibility that Renkus-Heinz is known for is always something to keep in mind for delivery of sound in a school – students need to hear the message clearly,” remarks Busza.
The six Sam Ibrahim Building theatres are now equipped to host lectures with crystal-clear speech and no distracting reverberation.