Cinema Design for an Assisted Living Facility

by Nyal Mellor March 15, 2019

Read this case study to learn more about the real world implementation of our cinema design services!

Client Profile

Ben Daniels is the owner of The Willows of Marshalltown, an assisted living and memory care facility in Iowa that accommodates 60 residents. He's an AV enthusiast, and had attended the grand opening of The Savoy home theater (an AVS Forum Home Theater of the Month), where Acoustic Frontiers had delivered a presentation on our home theater design process and results.

Project Profile

Ben approached us prior to construction, with a location earmarked on a set of architectural drawings called 'Training'. He wanted to create a dedicated cinema space that the residents could enjoy, as well as a space that would work to deliver employee training sessions.

Acoustic Frontiers Cinema Design Solutions

The scope of work was initially limited to a 4 hour cinema design review to determine the financial feasibility of including a small cinema in the development plan for the facility. The design review included development of a budget and review of cinema layout drawings that Ben had put together. Following on from the design review, Ben decided to have Acoustic Frontiers deliver our CORE cinema design package, comprised of:

• Cinema layout
• Sub number / placement optimization
• AV equipment engineering
• Acoustic treatment design

In addition we provided conceptual sound isolation and low voltage cabling design services.

Small cinema layout

Small cinema elevations

Low voltage design for mixed use cinema / training room

The Results

One of the more unique aspects of this cinema design project was that the acoustic treatment design needed to support the use of a commercial drop ceiling. These are often comprised of simple absorptive tiles, which don't work great in terms of delivering great sound quality. Our design incorporated a chequerboard mix of absorptive and non-absorptive ceiling tiles in addition to diffusers.

Front of cinema

Rear of cinema

For more, please check out the virtual tour at The Willows of Marshalltown website! The cinema installation was performed by a local company, High Impact AV. In terms of equipment, the speaker system utilized JTR speakers and the projection system combined a Seymour AV acoustically transparent projection screen with a 6000 lumen Vivitek laser projector.

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