Systems Integration Asia — February-March 2018

INTERVIEW^67

The project was awarded through Tender bid and Melvin
proposed a classical design for the new sanctuary. “I felt that
those who entered the church should have an instant connection
spiritually and be ready to encounter God. The sanctuary must
make people feel that they are entering the House of God with
humble hearts, as that is the feeling you get when you enter the
classically designed churches.”

Melvin lets on that he was adamant about the classical design but
was not sure if it would be accepted as there were two schools of
thought amongst the church committee, even after his bid was
accepted. At the end the majority of the committee decided to go
with the classical design.

Challenges

“The rst challenge I had is that the building committee did not
want to spend money on appointing an AV consultant. So I had
no choice but to step in and learn about technical requirements,”
said Melvin.

“Generally architects do need to be knowledgeable about
acoustics. I knew from the start that with my proposed design the
ceiling would need acoustic treatment knowing my intention for
the oor and walls are hard surfaces. I studied and identied three
different types of acoustic panels which had their respective
advantages and disadvantages. After discussing with the
committee we settled on the perforated aluminium panel with
rock wool. Two key reasons we chose this material was that it is
easy to maintain and it had a good sound absorption average of
0.79 (200Hz-2500Hz).”

Identifying the Sound System

A blind sound test was carried out at the Nativity Church in
Singapore. “This church had no acoustic treatment and that is
why we chose it. I had decided that we would need column
steerable speakers to integrate with the new sanctuary design and
so the shoot-out was amongst four brands that had the desired
type of speakers. Two were short-listed and the nal choice from
that were the Fohhn speakers. For all of us who were making the
decision, clarity and intelligibility was the key requirements as one
of the objectives of the church was about evangelisation.”

The Fohhn LFI-450 integrated within the column

The LX-60 and LX-10 perform monitor dues

for the choir and the priest

Designing the Sound System

“When the rst set of sound design was submitted, I was not too

happy with it. I felt that it was a conventional design – many

speakers in the middle of the sanctuary hall which are placed on

ALL columns. Furthermore, there are sub-woofers placed in front

of the altar area and at the bottom of the columns just in front of

the pews. I felt it was a distraction and defeated the purpose of

steerable speakers,” commented Melvin.

EASE reports from the system integrator was also requested and

Melvin took time to study it so as to understand the

measurements better. It was also at this point that Melvin with

much persuasion managed to convince the committee that an

acoustic consultant was required to measure the sound

reverberation time. The building committee invited 3 acoustic

consultants to tender, with Acoustic and Environmental Solutions

Pte Ltd winning the bid.

“I had a number of questions in relation to the EASE report and I

decided that I needed to hear from the Fohhn representative in

Singapore.” Thus contact was made and David Seow of Control

Logic Systems Pte Ltd, the distributor for Fohhn started

communications with Melvin.

David and Melvin spent many evenings working on the design

congurations including couple of video conferencing with Fohhn

Engineers in Germany with regards to precision. “Instead of

quantity I suggested a much longer column that would be able to

cover 90% of the entire church,” said David. The acoustic

consultant did a test with the suggested design that had less

speakers and shared with the team the RT results.

Melvin's intention to minimize the quantity and positioning of the

speakers were addressed. With the result Melvin took the decision

that there was no need to treat the walls.

At this point, the committee decided to hand the main sound

system design and installation for the new and existing sanctuary

to Control Logic Systems Pte Ltd.

“We wanted every spot to be comfortable with the audio and that

it should not be more than 3 decibel with the STI (Speech

Transmission Index) to be within 0.60 to 0.70. It was a very

challenging and exacting standard but we are very happy with the

nal result,” says Melvin.