Design and integration of acoustic treatment to the Former Stock Exchange—Cathedral Room

Abstract

The Gothic Bank Cathedral Room within the Former Stock Exchange located in Melbourne is architecturally significant and largely original displaying ornate features for a historical public business arena. The Cathedral Room was the main trading floor for the Stock Exchange and was designed to represent the interior of a church, highlighted by the vaulted roof, columns, and the stained-glass windows. Through the guidance of Heritage Council Victoria, the Cathedral Room was granted permission to be converted into a commercial dining room. This paper details the methodology adopted to reality capture the interiors of the Cathedral Room by deploying LiDAR laser scanning, to develop a room acoustics model, and to investigate mitigation options. Furthermore, it explores the link between applying appropriate acoustic targets, guiding stakeholders, and delivering the project, which is essential to operate a successful commercial business to meet the expectations of their cliental. Arup developed an Odeon model, which allowed for the placement of speech sources and receivers and with integrated mitigation options. The modeling was presented to stakeholders in Arup’s SoundLab, an ambisonic sound studio, allowing the stakeholders to listen to the untreated space and compare it to various levels of mitigation prior to progressing to detail design phase.