A Tale of Two Cafetoriums

Cafetoriums present a unique challenge in many respects. Combining the use of the same space as a cafeteria and for performance is an acoustic dilemma. If the space is too live, it will be noisy during lunch. If it’s too dead, it will produce a dry and lifeless sound when it comes to music. Over time we have developed a formula that works well for these spaces: we take out a significant amount of higher frequency energy to create a warmer sounding space that still is live enough for music. .

Two such spaces in the Horseheads Central School District are the Gardner Road Elementary School, and Horseheads Middle School. The Gardner Road project was a renovation with specific limited parameters. The design team at Hunt Engineering Architectural took our acoustic concepts and turned them into a unique patterning on the walls and the ceilings using lighting elements to create dimensional shapes. .

AVL then added all of the required lighting, stage rigging, audio and AV components to the space to complete the capabilities desired by the district. Day-to-day users are relatively automated but there are also performance consoles For both lighting and sound to allow for more sophisticated performances. .

The middle school was an expansion of an existing cafeteria including extended height in the middle of the room. Acoustic treatments including roof deck were designed into the space to control the sound of the enlarged room of volume. Larger quantities of absorption were used in the back of the room to account for frequency shift. .

Lighting was integrated with the acoustical clouds added into the room in front of the stage. Stage rigging and curtains were included with a motorized cyclorama, due to the low stage height not allowing counterweight rigging. High-definition projectors were included for both spaces with Crestron controls. .

Large flat screen monitors are located further back in the space allow group huddle sessions at each monitor location or they can project content coming from the stage from the streaming camera.