On the 25th floor of an office building in downtown Montreal, a masterclass in design engineering, collaboration and retrofitting took place between Skyfold engineers and architects.
THE DESIGN CHALLENGE
HUMÀ design + architecture was tasked with redesigning a multipurpose conference room for law firm BCF. The conference rooms were being used for client meeting spaces and employee training. In both cases, privacy and noise control were top concerns.
In the original design concept, HUMÀ was considering traditional movable walls, but limited floor space meant that storage closets on the floor for horizontal panels were out of the question. Instead, HUMÀ, wanted to give their clients a flexible space solution that has high acoustic performance, is easy to use and that does not impinge on floor space.
THE SOLUTION
HUMÀ selected three Skyfold Zenith® 60 walls since the system offers the highest STC rating in the industry. The Zenith wall also features a narrow path of travel, gliding straight into and out of the space from the ceiling, allowing furniture to be placed closely to the operable wall without preventing its operation.
Finding the right flexible solution was the easy part. HUMÀ faced a major obstacle: ceiling space. The client wanted to incorporate tall ceilings and modern fixtures, but the building had little overhead to play with. Skyfold engineers, HUMÀ designers and Corflex (local Quebec Skyfold supplier) worked together to design engineer the location of the ventilation ducts and to relocate the Skyfold motors to the exterior of the room. The clients were thus able to achieve the look they wanted, without having to sacrifice on the flexibility space solution that would give them the highest acoustic performance with the ease-of-use to quickly transform their conference rooms throughout the day.
