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Genelec helps create award-winning soundscape in New Children’s Hospital

The New Children’s Hospital (HUS) in Helsinki is a new € 170 M facility that uses art and play combined with the latest digital technology to provide medical care in a safe, reassuring environment for the children and their families.

Part of the hospital’s innovative approach included the development of a building-wide soundscape to create the sonic environment for patients and staff. The soundscape is fully networked, due in part to the use of 39 Genelec 8430A IP loudspeakers.

The soundscape design was recently awarded the Grand Prix in the soundscapes and ambient sound category of the 2019 International Sound Awards (ISA) in Hamburg.

The idea was to create a soundscape based on the visual theme of each of the hospital’s eight floors. Inspiration was drawn mostly from the natural world as well as the Finnish ‘Moomin’ stories. Antti Ikonen, Head of Sound in New Media at Aalto university, and ten of his MA students were responsible for the task of developing the content.

“All the audio material is hosted in a single computer which generates and renders the soundscapes before feeding them out to each floor and location via the hospital’s IP network,” explains Ikonen. “The design and planning started before the building even existed. We discussed with the architects, doctors, electrical engineers, IT people, and Genelec how to implement this holistic technological system.”

The soundscape is delivered via 39 Genelec 8430A IP loudspeakers and ten AIC25 in-ceiling loudspeakers distributed throughout the hospital’s lobbies and corridors from the underground car park all the way up to the top floor.

They are specifically not located in proximity to the nurses’ workstations so as not to disturb hospital staff, and neither are they found in patients’ rooms, operating theatres, meeting rooms or any other space that has a specific function.

Jon-Patrik Kuhlefelt, sound technician and digital audio specialist from the Sibelius Academy at Helsinki’s University of the Arts, also played an important role in the technical system design and content planning for the soundscape.

“The heart of the system is an Apple Mac Pro running a Max/MSP patch,” he says. “A Focusrite Rednet PCIeR audio interface in the Mac Pro feeds Dante streams to a BSS Blu-806DA DSP processor that is used mainly for muting all the loudspeakers in case of a fire alarm. From there, the outputs are fed to the Genelec 8430A IP loudspeakers via AES67. Finally, we have a Focusrite Rednet AM2 feeding the AIC25s.”

“There are nearly 100 Genelec loudspeakers throughout the building in total,” continues Kuhlefelt. “In addition to those used for the soundscape project, there are over fifty 4000 Series loudspeakers (mainly the compact 4020Cs) found in meeting rooms and conference areas throughout the hospital.”

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