Episode 1: LIGHT & SOUND + BUILDING THE EXCEL HOSPITAL - Colin Ball & Richard Grove - BDP (Building Design Partnership)

Welcome to the first episode of the Quiet Mark’s Acoustic Academy Podcast series.

Quiet Mark is the third generation global award programme associated with the UK Noise Abatement Society charitable foundation, with a unique longstanding remit to raise awareness of and finding solutions to noise pollution.

Our core service is specialism in technical assessments of the acoustic design of products, where we award the Quiet Mark to the quietest products, the best solutions to unwanted noise. We’re the first multi-national 'buy quiet' and ‘design-quiet’ movement organisation, a consumer champion, passionate acoustic experts focused on protecting public health and well-being.

Through our first series, to explore this, we’ve gathered and interviewed some of the leading architects and sound experts in the world, sharing exclusive intimate insights into some of their projects.

If you look at QuietMark.com you'll find over 350 awarded products from over 70 household name brands including wide ranges of consumer technology for every living space, including for the commercial sector, awarded building materials and technologies too, which have achieved the award meeting the lowest noise acoustic standards. 

The Quiet Mark is the distinctive purple Q logo found on awarded products across UK’s retailers like Argos Sainsburys, Currys Dixons and John Lewis & Partners. As a consumer, whenever you see the Quiet Mark, you know you are purchasing one of the quietest in its category.

Just before the lockdown, Quiet Mark launched our Acoustics Academy, the pioneering online platform service to help better understand and access specialist products so they become more widely used in the right applications to further enable creation of healthy living spaces.

It’s our great pleasure to introduce our first guests: Richard Grove, Group Acoustic Director at BDP and Colin Ball Lighting Director at BDP, Building Design Partnership.

Whilst we originally recorded our conversation at the Acoustics Academy launch event in February, soon after the Corona virus changed life as we knew it, lockdown meant that we started working from home. So yesterday, (April 8th April), we remotely recorded an extra section talking through insights into the building of the Nightingale Hospital and Richard’s unfortunate experience, battling with Coronavirus symptom. 

Colin is a leading designer of international excellence and repute. He leads the award winning London lighting studio. Educated in architecture, Colin has subsequently worked as a lighting designer for 21 years, with 10 years experience at Speirs + Major and 6 years at Isometrix Lighting + Design prior to joining BDP in 2011.

Richard is Acoustics Director and leads the Acoustics team in BDP’s Environmental Design Studio in London and has led the development of the recently launched Acoustics Technician Apprenticeship. He has worked in the field of acoustics since 2005, analysing and advising on acoustics and vibration designs in multi-discipline projects for a wide variety of sectors.