Our client, a company specialising in the design, build and installation of bespoke recording studios, have been leaders in innovation of in their sector since 2005.

One of their recent projects presented some unique challenges which required an innovative touch to tackle. A recording studio was to be built in the heart of London, and as the project was underway and testing began on the audio equipment, an unfortunate problem occurred. During playback of the recordings an unusual interference was noticeably present, rendering any recordings unusable. Our client were tasked with investigating this problem and developing a solution to overcome it.

The studio was located above an active underground railway line, and during the build of the studio, a key design focus was ensuring the studio was completely soundproof so as to not affect the artists. This is standard practice. However, a much more unique problem was also present. The high voltage electricity distribution lines used by the mainline railway were inducing an electromagnetic field, caused by the rapid acceleration of electrical particles through the lines. This invisible force was the source of the interference with the sensitive audio equipment in the studio above.

To overcome this our client devised a plan to build a Faraday cage, around the entire 18-room facility containing the studio. A Faraday cage is an enclosure made of conductive metal that is used to block electromagnetic fields, invented back in 1836 by renowned scientist Michael Faraday. The cage built by our client represented the first use of one this size and in this setting in the UK, pushing the boundaries of what has been done before.

We were able to work with the client to identify the baseline of knowledge in both the sector and within their own company on a project by project basis to assess the levels of R&D on each project. This led to a successful claim based on the new and innovative solutions our client developed.