Helsinki Music Centre – Musiikkitalo in Finnish – is a large and prestigious project. The building will be home to the Sibelius Academy, the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra and the Radio Symphony Orchestra. HVAC and electrical installations were designed in MagiCAD by the Finnish companies Granlund Oy and Lausamo Oy.
Musiikkitalo will replace the current national concert hall built in 1971. Its grand opening is scheduled for 31 August 2011. For a building of this kind, the acoustics are of course top priority. The worldrenowned Japanese company Nagata Acoustics was brought in at an early stage, with planning beginning as far back as 1997.
Acoustic requirements also affect the installations, with stringent demands placed on the ventilation system in particular. The main concert hall seats 1,700 people, and the building also has five smaller halls for 150-300 people.
Air quality and temperature must provide maximum comfort all year round, without generating disturbing noise – even when the music is played pianissimo.
Responsible for designing all the ventilation systems, Granlund Oy used MagiCAD’s integrated sound calculations to their full extent. Since Magi- CAD provides designers with real products containing the manufacturer’s data for sound levels at different flows, they can make reliable calculations for the entire system.
“Because the acoustics are key to the project, it has been very important that we have had the chance to balance the ventilation system in advance and examine the acoustics of the ducts and systems with MagiCAD,” says Jukka Tyni, design manager at Granlund.
