A world headquarters fit for a company with more than 100,00 employees in 175 countries, the expansive new Eaton Corporation facility in Cleveland, US, encompasses 580,000sqft of office space in a tower designed by architects Pickard-Chilton.
A massive glass atrium that soars several stories high is a towering feature of the building’s entrance. More than just an impressive entryway, it’s a stunning architectural design that serves as a nexus for staff and guests to converge for everything from casual lunching to large-scale company events.
International AV consultants Electrosonic created the atrium’s focal point, a towering cylindrical LED display matrix “chandelier” that brings an ever-changing dynamic to the environment with imagery, information, and animations that can be seen throughout the space.
Audio and acoustical treatment for the space was provided by Milford, Connecticut-based SH Acoustics. The brief invited the company to create an acoustical experience that would complement the stunning visual environment. The large, reflective environment presented its share of acoustical challenges.
SH Acoustics settled on a main system centered around Renkus-Heinz Iconyx IC7-II mechanically steerable line array loudspeakers. A total of eight IC7-II are implemented throughout the space, each with its own matching subwoofer, creating eight points of full-range sound.
“We’ve made six of them portable,” explained Steve Haas, president SH Acoustics. “The two permanently mounted units are great for providing light ambient music to fill the space. The others are on stands, and when they want to do a larger event, they just set them up, plug them in, and press a button from wherever they are in the space. That’s the magic of DSP – we’ve set up various configurations to work with a number of different types of events, different presentation positions, and other variables.”
“The Iconyx arrays are all calibrated to create an immersion in the middle of the atrium,” added Haas. “Using different time delays, we can make it sound like it is coming from one end or one side or wherever the speaker is located. The IC7s behave so well, even in challenging spaces, and that is a big part of what makes it work.”
