One of our recent projects, The Royal Opera House Open Up refurbishment project has been successfully completed in September this year. We are delighted to have worked on this exciting revamp and provided innovative noise monitoring to keep rehearsals going.

The project has seen a significant amount of works carried out within the existing building. The main opera house and auditorium remained open for regular scheduled performances during the entire demolition and construction process. Quiet conditions were paramount and essential to daily activities.

ROH required an early warning system that would notify the contractor and the client about a breach of noise limits in the Opera spaces during rehearsals and performances. The system trigger log would also serve as a proof of contractor’s fault (or not) if the most noise sensitive Opera activities had been disturbed. A traditional set up using a microphone was not possible as actors and musicians generated high levels of sound which would affect the readings and result in a number of false alarms. External microphones were also rejected due to high levels of noise in the area not related to site activity. A sophisticated and innovative monitoring system using structure borne vibration monitoring was therefore used instead.

The unique monitoring system proved to be very successful and helped the construction team to plan work accordingly.