A sculpted ceiling that shows what the product can do

Rockfon's own training centre needed a meeting room that solved real acoustic problems and doubled as a showpiece.

The Braunstone meeting room at Rockfon's training centre, where a sculpted Mono Acoustic island forms the centrepiece of the ceiling.

A room that’s effective and impressive

When Rockfon built its new training centre in Northamptonshire, the Braunstone meeting room had a double job to do. At 12 by 6 metres and seating up to 30 people, it needed to be a flexible space for training, meetings and events, and it needed to show clients first-hand what Rockfon's ceilings are capable of.

That meant getting the acoustics right and creating something worth looking up at.

Rain noise and a hard, echoey room

Two problems shaped the brief. The building has a lightweight roof, which lets rain noise carry into the room below. And the meeting room itself is full of hard surfaces, with a long internal window facing plasterboard walls, sending sound bouncing back and forth and pushing up reverberation.

So the room needed two things at once: insulation to keep noise from outdoor elements like rain out, and absorption to keep speech clear inside.

A single flat ceiling would have solved the acoustics but missed the chance to show what the product can really do.

Project info

Project name

Rockfon Training Centre Daventry

Location

Northamptonshire, United Kingdom

Architecture

Matt Willemsen, Associate at Spatial Futures Architects

Installation

PANARC Interior Solutions LLP

Photography

Hannah Taylor, The Lens Box

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Products used

Rockfon® Mono Acoustic

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Rockfon® Eclipse

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The metal framing for the sculpted island takes shape during installation.

PANARC laid out the prefabricated curved channels on-site before shaping the Mono Acoustic panels.

The bespoke Mono Acoustic sculpture during installation.

A figure-of-eight island, built by hand

The design uses three Rockfon solutions together:

1. Above, a ceiling of Rockfon Color-all dB46 tiles in Stone provides the insulation: 50mm tiles built from two layers of stone wool with a membrane between them, giving Class A absorption while cutting airborne and impact sound, including the rain. 

2. Rockfon Canva wall panels add further absorption on the walls. 

3. The centrepiece is a sculpted Mono Acoustic island, designed by architect Matt Willemsen as a figure of eight suspended below the main ceiling.

Its curved form softens the acoustics and frames halo lighting within two circular voids. Building it took real craft: PANARC prefabricated curved channels to exact radii, framed the shape on-site, cut the Mono Acoustic into triangular segments to form the curves, then jointed, sanded and spray-finished the whole island over three days for a seamless result.

"Overall, this project was very technical and required a lot of thought and a robust methodology," said George Fernberg, Business Development Manager at PANARC.

Close up of the curved Rockfon Mono Acoustic shape.

The finished island, with integrated halo lighting and a seamless sprayed edge following the curve.

A working showcase

The Braunstone room now does exactly what it was built to do. It keeps rain noise out and speech clear inside, and it gives everyone who trains there a first-hand look at how far a Rockfon ceiling can be pushed, both in performance and in design.

Also want a ceiling that solves a real acoustic problem and becomes a feature in its own right? Get in touch, and we'll help you shape it.