The University of Toronto Scarborough has outfitted its new Sam Ibrahim Building with Renkus-Heinz loudspeakers to provide clear, intelligible audio in six modern lecture theaters.
The five-story facility includes lecture halls, faculty offices and collaboration spaces. Its six feature theaters, Conveyor, Cave, Keystone, Collaboratorium, Cloud and the flagship Arrow Group Innovation Hall, each presented the same challenge: ensuring crystal-clear speech in rooms with complex layouts and varied acoustics.
To address this, the university partnered with distributor Contact Distribution Ltd. and integrator Global Unified Solution Services Inc. (Global USS). The team installed a mix of Renkus-Heinz UBX Series passively steered column loudspeakers and C Series point source loudspeakers, selected for their precision and speech clarity. Lead architects CEBRA and ZAS set out to design an emotionally engaging environment that promotes sensory-rich, inclusive learning. According to Bill Coons, director of Contract Distribution, “These rooms look and sound dramatically different from anything I’ve seen to engage the students and make the learning experience more effective and fulfilling.”
“The overarching challenge for us was providing a solution for rooms that were already designed, with cable pathways already in place,” explains John Busza, CTS-D, Systems Designer at Global USS. “Our installation team therefore had to work with the space they were given, making Renkus-Heinz’s adaptable solutions a perfect fit.”
“I was at an industry event with John early on in the project, and I expressed my concern that the speaker arrays we would be using in the larger feature rooms wouldn’t provide sufficient coverage,” explains Blake Markle, Manager, Classroom Technology and Film Services at the University of Toronto Scarborough. “These rooms feature 100-200 seats, and they all have irregular ceilings with angles and materials that make working with ceiling or pendant speakers impossible. All we would be able to use were two arrays on the front wall.
“John simply said, ‘I got you. The Renkus-Heinz UBX8 arrays are small but powerful; they will fill the room with sound, and the topmost drivers will reach those back rows.’ Once the installation was far enough along to play some audio in the rooms, I was happy to confirm that he was right. It is great to work with an AV partner who can take your concerns into consideration, offer reassurance that things will be good, and really follow through on that. Choosing the right equipment is one of the ways this is done.”
Four of the lecture theaters each received a pair of UBX8 loudspeakers, while the fifth theater doubled that setup. These passively steered column loudspeakers deliver precise coverage, intelligibility and strong sound quality. For the Arrow Group Innovation Hall, 30 CX61 loudspeakers were selected for their wide dispersion, flexible rotatable horn and subwoofer size suited to the vocal range. “The overall calibre of audio intelligibility that Renkus-Heinz is known for is always something to keep in mind for delivery of sound in a school – students need to hear the message clearly,” remarks Busza.
Because of the variation in tiered seating, coverage was straightforward to model in some rooms, while others required more placement and tilt adjustments. The UBX8’s passive UniBeam technology provided the consistent coverage needed. The columns were placed on the sides of the dual projection screen setups, with 120-degree dispersion bringing sound into the middle of the first few rows. The UBX8’s asymmetrical vertical pattern control was also effective for the tiered layouts, helping ensure clarity in every seat.
“In one particularly challenging room, the cable rough-ins were lower than the integrators preferred when looking at the EASE Focus modelling, with priority given to covering up the rough-in with the bottom of the speaker rather than dressing cabling on the wall,” recalls Busza. “This led to the loudspeakers being significantly lower than needed. Together with Contact Distribution, we decided to mount a second pair of UBX8s above the first pair, rotated 180° so that the down-tilt of the vertical dispersion faced upwards instead. This provided a longer array and therefore clear audio coverage to the rear rows.”
The flagship Arrow Group Innovation Hall’s unique 360°-seating arrangement challenged the team to find an audio solution that provides the same professional audio quality. “The hexagon-shaped room has six sections of seats with six rows each, meaning lectures take place ‘in the round,’” explains Busza. “Six angled walls above the sections house large direct-view LED videos. In the center where the lecture is delivered, the ceiling is higher and more open. The first two rows of seats are exposed to this large space, whilst the rest are positioned under a lower ceiling.
“The room’s layout meant a suspended cluster of loudspeakers would impact sightlines for the displays and fail to reach the rear audience rows,” Busza continues. “Instead, the decision was made to mount point source cabinets along the bottom of the central perimeter with five loudspeakers along each bulkhead – three aimed towards the rear of the audience and two aimed towards the front.” Global USS opted for CX61 loudspeakers due to their 150° horizontal and 60° vertical dispersion, their compact form working well in such a confined space. “This meant the front section of the audience would receive sound from behind; there was no other manageable solution in the space,” says Busza. “However, the exceptional performance characteristics for which Renkus-Heinz is renowned would still ensure high intelligibility.”
The six theaters in the Sam Ibrahim Building are now equipped to host lectures with clear speech and minimal reverberation. With high-quality audio as a foundation, the University of Toronto Scarborough is setting a new standard for learning environments. Renkus-Heinz UBX8 and CX61 loudspeakers provide the precision and clarity needed to ensure students hear every word and stay engaged, while professors can be confident their presentations will have impact. “I’ve worked with UofT for quite a few years on several projects now. Blake Markle is great to work with,” notes Busza. “It was an accomplishment working together to get through all of the construction, site condition, and design hurdles and deliver the systems to the university’s satisfaction.”
