Oxford University’s new cultural campus, the Schwarzman Centre, offers artistic research, performance and experimentation with the help of recent developments from d&b audiotechnik, including the CCL system, and the latest addition to the d&b Soundscape ecosystem, Create.Control.
Designed by Hopkins Architects and opened in October 2025, Oxford University’s Schwarzman Centre boasts all the facilities expected of a leading educational institution. Alongside the Bodleian Humanities Library, plus research and lecture facilities, are world-class spaces for the development and performance of music and arts, equipped with sound solutions from d&b audiotechnik.
Its showpiece venue, the Sohmen Concert Hall, is intended primarily for unamplified orchestral presentation, but in order to host amplified performances when needed, it is equipped with d&b’s new CCL system. Elsewhere, in the versatile, experimental space of the Black Box Performance Lab, the latest multimedia presentation technologies include a versatile rigging grid and a flexible, immersive d&b Soundscape sound system.
Leading theatre consultancy Charcoalblue, who had led the design of technical performance infrastructure, was asked to consider sound systems for the Concert Hall and the Black Box. Charcoalblue’s Paul Franklin and Dicky Burgess knew that the Concert Hall’s need to be multi-use would call for a compromise of sorts. The Black Box, meanwhile, needed a playback system with enough processing and source flexibility to reproduce the ‘immersive’ mixes created in the centre’s Dolby Atmos-equipped music studios.
Once d&b audiotechnik was chosen to provide the sytems, Creative Technology was selected to supply and install the project.
d&b’s new CCL (Compact Cardioid Line Array) was chosen for the Concert Hall’s deployable main PA, consisting of two mobile ground-stacks, left and right, each of two CCL-SUBs, two CCL12 and one CCL8. Additionally, 44S cabinets provide front-fill, Y7Ps cover the balcony, and a combination of E8 and E6 boxes covers the choir stalls. M6 monitor wedges and a B6-SUB (for drum-fill) are available for the stage, and D40s are the chosen amplifiers.
In the Black Box, the d&b Soundscape system comprises three 360° ‘rings’ of d&b 8S loudspeakers – 16 on the lower ring, 16 on the middle, and another nine, plus two 21S-SUBs, in the ceiling.
The choice of Soundscape was aided by the imminent release of d&b’s new software, Create.Control. A major step forward for d&b Soundscape, Create.Control’s intuitive visual interface offers extensive sound object and show control possibilities. Crucially for this application, it includes control of the Z-axis in the Soundscape environment –essential for the required Atmos playback.