Deafblind UK’s headquarters, The National Centre for Deafblindness, is a unique building that receives thousands of visitors every year. Among them are school children taking part in education programmes, businesses utilising their superb conference facilities and, of course, their deafblind members.

Every detail of this purpose-designed & built facility has been carefully planned and thought about with the full consultation of deafblind people to include many special features which make it a ‘home-from-home’ for the disabled and particularly deafblind people. In fact, in most cases, the Centre will be the only place a deafblind person can be completely independent away from their own home.

Among the many features of the building is a modern conference facility for up to 200 delegates and an activity-based learning centre for visiting groups of school children. A range of interactive educational programmes are provided for school children of all levels to provide a solid understanding of deafblindness and how this unique disability can affect a person’s experience of the world. Furthermore, special ‘music’ classes are provided for deafblind students who experience the music by ‘feeling the sound’ using the vibrations from inflated balloons.

CIE-Group were recently approached to enhance the Sound Reinforcement System with the additional requirements of improved voice clarity for the hearing impaired and SPLs capable of producing vibrations which would allow deafblind users to feel the sound in these music appreciation sessions. Through specialist disability services provider ‘DDA Installations’, CIE-Group provided a multi-zone combined voice and music system including Inter-M A120 amplifiers and 10 Armstrong i-ceilings CS-1000 Sound Panels.

As this audio system was to be retrofitted into a brand new facility, and having such a diverse range of uses, i-ceilings Sound Panels provided the ideal loudspeaker solution – due to their acoustic capabilities, unobtrusive aesthetics and speed & simplicity of installation. The system has now enhanced the teaching and conferencing facilities allowing for greater flexibility and increased revenue for the Charity from educational, corporate and private usage.