Dublin Airport's Terminal 2 is a 600m project which included a new terminal building, a new boarding gate pier, a new combined heat and power facility, 19 new aircraft parking stands, and an upgraded airport road network.
Terminal 2, which has already won a major design award for its use of structural steel, was built by a consortium comprising of Arup, Mace, Pascall+Watson and Davis Langdon PKS. With its steel and glass facade, the new terminal makes use of natural light to create a modern and comfortable space for both departing and arriving passengers. However, for Arup Acoustics, the acoustic and electro-acoustic designers on the project, all these hard surfaces posed several challenges.
Pierpaolo Pilla from Arup Acoustics explains reports: "The helpful support of the Duran Audio technical team during design has allowed a customised and compliant coverage of crucial areas in the terminal. The most acoustically challenging spaces in the terminal were in the landside. The very big volumes in this part of the terminal only allowed a certain degree of control of reverberation.
"However these big areas were free of obstacles and the use of active phased arrays was indeed the only viable option. Satisfactory architectural integration was achieved by the use of active phased arrays at check in, landside arrivals and landside departures, and by the use of passive arrays at security."
AXYS Intellivox units were used in these key landside areas to ensure that the messages from the PA system were clear and intelligible. In total eight AXYS Intellivox units were installed in the check-in and security areas.
"We had worked with Intellivox before on other types of installations" said Peadar Carley from Sound Productions, "but this was our first experience of using them in an airport environment. The experience that we had gained with the product previously in churches and other acoustically challenging environments gave us great confidence in the solution and we weren't disappointed. The Intellivox speakers are performing very well, providing highly intelligible paging and emergency announcements over large expansive areas in the check-in building."
Performance was the most important criteria to be fulfilled, but the Intellivox units also had to be integrated into the architecture of the terminal. Representatives from Duran Audio UK, Sound Productions and Arup Acoustics worked closely with architects from Pascall + Watson to ensure that the Intellivox units were to be as unobtrusive as possible once installed.
Dublin is just the latest in a long line of airports to install Intellivox units. Previous installs include: Dubai, JFK Terminal 4 and Changi Airports. "The AXYS Intellivox is designed to be the ultimate message delivery service; delivering clear and intelligible announcements to passengers, making it the perfect choice for airports" commented Steffan Lewis from Duran Audio UK. " Having a clear and intelligible PA system in an airport is not only important for passenger safety but it also means that passenger stress levels are reduced. Since its introductions in the 1990s Intellivox has set a new standard and raised people's expectations of what can be achieved."
(Jim Evans)
