A request from a visionary for a multiuse cinema space that could be turned around in 13 weeks turned into a CEDIA EMEA Award winner last year. Amy Stoneham finds out more.
Movies are often a great way of bringing a family or community together. This was certainly the case for this family living in Johannesburg, South Africa, who were keen to have a home cinema built that would leave a lasting impression on anyone who experienced it.
From one family to another, BNC Technology, a family-run integration business, stepped up to the job. With just 13 weeks to complete the project in time for Christmas, the integrators began planning the room with the King family.
Providing a full turnkey solution, the cinema was built with design in mind, ensuring that everything was hidden and furniture was custom made to fit the space perfectly. “We followed the lead of the family,” says Nick Caripis, founder of BNC Technology. “We envisioned a room spacious enough for Mr King’s charismatic personality. We imagined cladded acoustics around the cinema with high-performance tech and tricks to ignite enthusiasm for the kids.”
Designing perfection
The entire process began with a design phase, where the integrator and interior designer – part of the same company – took the homeowners through an in- depth process of asking them questions to discover exactly what was required to build a detailed brief. It also allows them to get to know the homeowners better and understand how they plan to use the space.
“We asked them enough questions in the beginning to cover absolutely every detail of the room,” explains Caripis. “We then create a presentation with renders to show what it’s going to look like and then we make it look identical during the install process.”
It was important to the family that the space was totally built to fit their needs. Mr King, a 6ft 6in man, needed a comfortable space to relax with his wife and young children, while also using the room to hold church meetings with his community.
To accommodate, BNC Technology custom made an oversized couch, perfect for the tall homeowner, a row of cinema seating behind, and bean bags on the floor at the front to ensure optimal comfort for all users.
With a young daughter and twins on the way, it was also important that everything in the cinema was tucked away so that little hands couldn’t be tempted to touch and play with the expensive systems installed. This allowed the integrator to build acoustic wall cladding to ensure noise doesn’t escape the room, a concern that the homeowners had. They also upgraded the door to make it a fully acoustic door rated to 53dB to keep the noise of the cinema inside and not wake up the rest of the household.
High-tech cinema
Making up the heart of the cinema, BNC Technology installed a JVC projector and a 300cm cinema screen to fill the 32 sq m room. This was coupled with a 7.1.4 surround sound Dolby Atmos set up using Klipsch speakers and two SVS Inc Controlled 10” subwoofers. Thanks to the rear wall having limited depth, the subwoofers were installed above floor level behind the acoustically transparent screen with the Klipsch LCR speakers. In-wall and in-ceiling speakers were used around the cinema to create the Dolby Atmos surround sound.
While movies will be the main content watched in this room, it also needed to cater for sports, TV watching and music. An Apple TV and set top box was installed into the cinema to give the users plenty of content options.
A cabinet was built to safely house the equipment inside the wall beneath the screen, out of sight and young, curious hands. It also allowed for the utilised space to be maximised, particularly important for gatherings with the church community on a Sunday morning.
A Middle Atlantic rack was used to house the technical equipment behind the cinema’s functionality.
To control the room, a Control4 system was used, giving the homeowners quick, easy and simple access to their home cinema space. With just four presets, the commands were simple to follow and allowed the room to set up exactly as they wanted at the touch of a button. One button was also used to turn the entire system off when they were finished. There was a keypad on the wall as well as a Neeo remote for full control options.
“As you know, Control4 is very easy to use anyway, but we just totally simplified it for them as best we could as it was only controlling the one room,” adds Caripis. “It didn’t need to do a lot or have any fancy gimmicks. So, it’s very easy to use.”
To give the all-important high-end cinema effect, BNC Technology finished the room with individual LED lights installed in the ceiling to create a ceiling of twinkly stars.
Transforming the empty shell
Before work began, what is now the cinema room sat as an empty shell of an existing house that the homeowners had recently purchased. The room was already semi-designed to be a cinema with tiered flooring and an air conditioning unit already in place. However, these both caused issues.
“The biggest challenge was that the tiers for the seating were all the wrong length,” Caripis continues. “This was a problem for the viewing angles and positioning of the screen. We had to rebuild the tiers with wood and a bit of brickwork to make them the right size for the right kind of chairs.”
The air conditioning unit was also a problem, having no fresh air intake so the integrator had to adapt to it so that it could get air from the bar area into the cinema room to keep the equipment and also the users cool. The ducted system is designed to extract hot air from the equipment to keep the room cool.
Calibration
For this cinema room, both the speaker and video calibration were done in- house by BNC Technology. Calibration is thought about right from the design process.
Caripis states: “My designer handles the speaker placements when we are going through the design phase to ensure it is positioned to sound its best. My interior designer then works on speaker angles, screen angles, and the rest of the normal cinema design. We then calibrate the audio and video when it’s all installed as part of the set up process.”
In hindsight…
When talking to integrators about their projects, they often look back and wish they had pushed for higher-performing speakers or a bigger screen, etc. However, in this instance, the cinema room was fit for the king!
It contained exactly what the homeowners had asked for and gave them the multiuse space they clearly set out in the brief.
In feedback since the project’s completion, the homeowners have already had a lot of use from the cinema in the first year of having it and have also recently given the integrators a referral for his neighbour who is looking to have a similar system installed in her house.
The homeowner is also looking at building his dream home and plans to work with BNC Technology again on a new, bigger cinema in that project sometime in the future.
The King family were not the only ones impressed with the home cinema, with the project winning the Home Cinema Level I accolade at last year’s CEDIA EMEA Awards.
Tech-Spec
- Acoustic Door
- Adeo Plano Screen
- Apple TV
- Aurea 8 Channel Amplifiers
- Clearline Surge Protection
- Control4 1 Gang Faceplates Aluminium
- Control4 3 Gang Faceplate Midnight Black
- Control4 Controller V2
- Control4 Custom Engravings
- Control4 Neeo Remote
- Control4 Wireless Adaptive Phase Dimmers 240V
- Control4 Wireless Keypad Dimmer 240V
- Denon AV Receiver
- DStv Explora 3B Decoder
- Fibre Optic Lights, Including Light Circuit & Control4 Switch
- Furman Power Conditioner
- JVC Projector
- Klipsch In-Ceiling Speakers
- Klipsch In-Wall Speakers
- Klipsch LCR Speakers
- Kordz PRS3 Series Active Optimal HDMI Cable
- Kordz R.3 Series Passive HDMI Cables
- Middle Atlantic Quiet Fan
- Middle Atlantic Rack
- MiniDSP 2x4 Digital Audio Processor
- Pakedge 7-Port Router
- Pakedge Access Point 4x4
- Pakedge Humidity Sensor
- Pakedge MS Series L3 Managed Gigabit Switch
- Pakedge PowerPak 8-Outlet PDU
- SVS PB-1000 Inc Controlled 10” Subwoofers