White Mark Wins Upgrade Bid

Studio and design consultancy White Mark Ltd has won an international concept design competition to modernise the recording studios and control rooms at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw, Poland.
Since 1963, the university has been headquartered in a five-storey building. Originally designed to take into account the requirements of the Sound Engineering department, the building has studios in the basement as well as a concert hall and teaching facilities on the other floors.
The University decided to hold a competition to vie for the contract to refurbish and modernise the building.
The brief was complex as there were a large number of rooms to take into consideration including two recording studios, an orchestral studio, various editing suites, lecture theatres and a master control room linking all of these facilities together. There was also a requirement to design an Atmos mixing studio.
Alan Cundell, Director of White Mark, says: "We approached the competition brief in the same way that we would approach any design brief – with a view to giving the client the best facility possible within the constraints of the budget and the available space.
"The main issues we faced were optimally configuring the large number of rooms that needed to be included in our submission and ensuring that our technical proposals were both appropriate to the University's educational requirements and reflected current industry practice. The time frame was very short and we had to pull out all the stops to meet the deadline."
Judging was carried out on a percentage basis, with marks allocated in three sections – compliance with guidelines, innovation and feasibility. White Mark's overall rating was 92% – 11% higher than the competition.
The Fryderyk Chopin University is now discussing the on-going project with White Mark as it hopes to start the design and building of its new Sound Engineering department at the beginning of next year.
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(IT/JP)