At £7.8m per apartment, The Dumont on Albert Embankment required a luxury entertainment experience to cater for residents of such a high stature to entice potential buyers. The entertainment area included an 18-seat home cinema, a bowling alley, and a billiards room.
Richard Reid, managing director of AONYX, the integration company on this job, said: “The top end of London’s residential real estate market is in a bit of an arms race to provide high-net worth individuals with customised living experiences, and centrepiece amenities like this incredible movie theatre make a statement to potential buyers.
“Every detail matters here, from colour-matched custom-painted grilles for the Triad Platinum Series in-ceiling speakers to the hand-built projector enclosure. The most important thing, however, is that the room and system is always reliable and easy to use, and that’s why we chose to install Control4 over other automation and media distribution systems.”
Starting with a concrete shell, the brief stipulated an amazing cinema for the upper echelon of homeowners that would live there. This involved everything from the design and construction of the tiered seating platform which would cater for 18 seats. It also had to be a highly immersive experience which was achieved using 14 speakers.
The building developer was adamant that the projector was to be discreetly mounted into some kind of joinery. Oliver Benson, operations director at AONYX explained: “We managed to back-end it into a custom-built joinery unit at the back of the room, and every last detail and every corner was thought through.”
A Control4 system was used for the entertainment area, giving residents simple and intuitive control of the theatre, bowling alley, and billiards room. Using Control4’s intuitive user interface on mobile devices or via a Control4 remote, staff can quickly and easily set up or shut down the entire entertainment area, choose movies or music, and set the volume for each independent area.
Triad Platinum range speakers are hidden in the walls and ceilings throughout the entertainment area to play audio for the residents through the Control4 multiroom audio system. The rooms can all play the same music, or they can use different sources for multiple groups.
It was important that everything was as discreet as possible so AONYX used painted in-ceiling speakers throughout. As well as these, the integrator also installed acoustic treatments in the cinema room and Triad in-wall speakers behind the fabric walls and the screen to deliver a commercial-grade surround sound experience for all 18-tiered seats.
In terms of the content available, Kaleidescape players were installed in each room to offer a custom selection of titles chosen by property management, while Apple TVs enable residents to bring their own content or connect to subscription streaming services.
“In buildings like this, the goal is to ensure residents can live carefree and not have to trouble themselves with details or procedures of building functions,” added Benson. “All the hidden technology in these rooms presents an out-of-sight, out-of-mind experience that provides all the benefits of top-shelf tech with none of the headaches. The property managers are even planning to offer new film screenings, private events and potentially offer the space for booking to outside parties.”
Away from the cinema room, both the bowling alley and billiards room have TVs that receive video signal through the Control4 system, and each display can play its own content or share a video stream with the other areas. This allows larger parties to enjoy the full entertainment options together, or for separate groups to use the individual rooms simultaneously. Residents are able to book the cinema room or other spaces through a digital reservation system.
The entertainment area is built in the basement of The Dumont apartment block so AONYX installed the professional-grade Pakedge system to ensure there is plenty of bandwidth to support the amount of users and the AV system. The Wi-Fi system is run through a Ruckus system to ensure a rock-solid wireless network.
30m IR 5mpg Fixed Dome Bullet CCTV Camera w/ Microphone
Arcam AV 860 Dolby Atmos Surround Sound Processor
Arcam FMJ P349 3 x 200w per channel Power Amplifiers
Cisco Layer 3 Gigabit 24 Port PoE Network Switch
Control4 2 Slot Din Rail Lighting Enclosure
Control4 7” Portable Touchscreen incl. Charging Dock
Control4 8-Channel Adaptive Phase Dimmer
Control4 8-Port Din Rail Ethernet Switch
Control4 48V Bus Power Supply
Control4 Keypad Buttons Midnight Black (Satin)
Control4 Square Wired Configurable Keypads V2 Neutral
Control4 SR260 Remote incl. Charging Dock and EAI Controller
DrayTek Vigor Dual Band Firewall Router
Fixed 4.6m 16:9 Acoustically Transparent Projection Screen
Fixed Ceiling Mount Projector Bracket
HDBaseT 4K over Cat6 Extender Kit
Strato 4K Ultra HD Movie Player
Triad In-Ceiling Silver/6 Monitor Speakers
Triad In-Room Platinum Subs w/ 700 DSP Subwoofer Amplifier
Triad In-Wall Gold/4 Surround Speakers
Triad In-Wall Silver/6 Monitor Speakers
Triad On-Wall Platinum LCR Speakers
Triad On-Wall Silver Subs w/ 700 DSP Subwoofer Amplifier