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Stormen Concert Hall receives a royal opening

United Kingdom Architecture News - Nov 19, 2014 - 12:14   2915 views

Stormen Concert Hall receives a royal opening

This brand new cultural venue in Bodø is a unique and fully-flexible space designed by Arup’s theatre consultants.

One of the world’s first fully-convertible multi-purpose auditoria, Stormen Concert Hall in Norway, is now open to the public.

This brand new cultural venue in Bodø, situated above the Arctic Circle, was opened by His Royal Highness, The Crown Prince Regent, on 15 November 2014 in advance of its first symphonic concert on 17 November.

Arup was appointed by the Bodø Kommune to provide acoustictheatre and technical systems consulting services; and concept designs for mechanical, electrical and structural engineering services along with DRDH Architects. Stormen houses a Concert Hall as well as a Jazz club and a smaller multi-purpose auditorium.

Stormen Concert Hall will be able to host complex theatre shows with a proscenium stage, a full flytower of international standard and variable-sized orchestra pit. It will also able to fully transform its interior structure to deliver world-class symphony concerts in a traditional shoe box hall.

The auditorium is a unique and fully-flexible space designed by Arup’s theatre consultants so that the transformation of the concert hall to a proscenium theatre takes little more than an hour. Acoustic reflectors and motorised ceiling panels can be flown into place and the huge side wall panels can be relocated to physically change the acoustic and visual look of the space. There is also a moving lighting bridge which provides an infinite number of variable lighting positions for theatrical productions.

“Working on Stormen has given the Arup team the opportunity to design some of the most innovative acoustic and stage engineering features in theatre and concert hall sphere. Although there are theatres around the world that can be used for orchestral performances, and vice versa, this is one of the few that can fully transform without compromising the acoustic performance of either, and the only one with such sophisticated moving elements. Stormen has been designed to give theatre and orchestral concert use equal importance.”

-Ian Knowles, Project Director, Arup

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