Munro win design contract for Royal National Theatre

Acoustic consultancy Munro Associates have been awarded the contract to design the new recording facilities at the Royal National Theatre on London's South Bank.
Specialist studio building company Form & Funktion won the contract to build and install new recording facilities at the theatre, and the Munro team will work closely with Form & Funktion to transform space in the theatre's basement into two production rooms. There will also be a live area, with audio and video tie lines to the three National Stages. Foley facilities will be installed for creating sound effects.
The sound studios will be used to record music and sound effects for various productions and audio-based marketing and promotional material for the theatre itself. They will also handle the video and audio recordings of productions that are made for the theatre's archives. Work on the project begins in July and is expected to last three months.
Form & Funktion's Managing Director, Clive Glover, said: "The Royal National Theatre has waited 30 years for these facilities – they were designed into the original plans but when the theatre was built back in 1976 there wasn't enough money to install them.
"However, thanks to National Lottery funding and a donation from the Rose Foundation, the theatre now has the budget to complete the project and we are delighted to have been chosen to handle the building work and acoustic installation."
Equipment lists for the two production rooms are still being finalised, but are likely to include a Yamaha O2R console, Genelec monitoring and Pro Tools.
Munro Associates, www.munro.co.uk
(GMcG)