Nurseries are notoriously noisy places but a degree of calm will always be maintained at the Priory Nursery in Great Yarmouth, thanks to Ecophon Limited and some clouds permanently on the horizon.

The unusual application for Ecophon’s Master Alpha acoustic panels was dreamt up between the company’s area representative for East Anglia, Mike Prince, and Monahan Blythen Architects, the lead consultant on the project.

As a result a dozen of the ‘cloud mobiles’ were produced and installed within the crèche by SCL Interiors Ltd, the contractor responsible for fitting the ceilings in this facility and the three existing classrooms.

Project Architect, Malcolm Birks recounts: “Ecophon staged a CPD seminar for us at the time we were working on the detailed design for the Great Yarmouth project and it just seemed the Master Alpha answered all of our concerns.

“The first phase of work was using Ecophon’s Focus D system to create a conventional drop ceiling in each of the existing classrooms. I particularly wanted to use the concealed grid to achieve a more monolithic look, and that has worked very well.

“Then in the second phase we built the crèche and used the Ecophon Master Alpha panels suspended from the main ceiling. Combined with a variety of pin-boards and other softer finishes we believe they will be very effective in cutting out the reverberation.”

Andy Golding, the Contracts Manager for SCL Interiors adds: “The clouds were cut from Master Alpha 40 mm panels here in our workshop on the Whitehouse Industrial Estate in Ipswich. The exposed edges were triple painted in white to complete the semblance and installed at different heights across the ceiling using a fine nylon line, effecting an ‘invisible suspension’.”

Ecophon has a range of ceiling systems and wall panels able to help project teams achieve the desired reverberation times for different environments. In addition to the education CPD seminar Ecophon has also published an authorative book on the subject and can advise clients on systems to suit all commercial, retail and public buildings.