Lafayette, 4 St Pancras Square

Integrating a live music venue within an office building was the challenge posed by this project. The building, part of the Kings Cross regeneration, follows a relatively conventional commercial office template. Universal Music occupy multiple office floors, located above retail units at ground and basement. The vision of the client (Argent) was to turn the basement unit into an exciting, new music venue. However, concerned that daytime sound-checks and evening gigs could impact Universal’s operations above, they needed reassurance that the dream could be realised.

The starting point was to make some noise. A concert-grade sound-system was used to generate very high noise levels in the future venue space. The bass could be heard as high as the 9th floor; which didn’t help Argent’s concerns! With the challenge laid out, noise control measures were developed. Consultation with Argent on noise intrusion limits, which needed to be agreed with Universal and future restaurant tenants, was key. With criteria agreed, multiple design proposals were developed, using Statistical Energy Analysis amongst other techniques, and presented to Argent to demonstrate that this ambitious plan could succeed. Proposals included floor and wall infills between the retail units, a full box-in-box construction within the main venue, and an additional floating floor within the restaurant. Collaboration and cooperation between two acousticians, working for both Landlord and Tenant, was pivotal in successfully incorporating the noise control measures within the design. Extensive modelling optimised the design to minimise constructions whilst maintaining acoustic performance. Having delivered the necessary acoustic quality for both Clients, allowing the venue to operate effectively unrestricted by noise whilst simultaneously allaying Argent’s concerns about possibly upsetting other tenants, ‘Lafayette’ opened in March 2020.

FURTHER INFORMATION can be found here and the video is available here.