Palpable silence
Silence is, in equal parts, tranquil and torturous. One person’s discomfort is another person’s solace. Silence is subjective, multi-faceted, and necessary; as a sonic dualism, noise cannot exist without silence. To accurately sculpt the absence of sound, incorporating the nuance of its extremes, the design team turned to abstract silhouettes. The result is a wall made up of ribbon-esque strips of Cube™, folded like origami to form a pattern of tessellated wedges. Drawing inspiration from the triangular shapes common in anechoic chambers, the wedges fluently capture the concept of dualism in the juxtaposition of their angular form with the warm, honeycomb palette.
Each wedge is 450 mm long, creating drama with playful shadows and distorted light. Lending itself to both aesthetic and acoustic sensibilities, the depth adds precious surface area for sound absorption. As the wedges have open sides, the measurements and arrangement needed to be exact to ensure the entire wall would be covered seamlessly, and any negative space wouldn’t reveal the framing beneath. The design team made a series of small scale models, first with cardboard, then graduating to Cube panels—developing and refining the concept until it fit the brief perfectly. Models that, due to the odd shape and precise measurements of the wedges, were eventually used as a reference for the installers.
