01
Suspended geometry
A circular cluster of four modules around a central axis. The form reads as a chandelier rather than as ceiling-mounted hardware.
Project — Spatial role
An acoustic object
suspended at the centre
of the room.
Atelier Orbita was created for Lumen Coffee and Karmir Film Lab as a site-specific sound object — part loudspeaker, part spatial centrepiece, part identity statement. Rather than disappearing into the ceiling or the walls, it claims visual presence and helps define the atmosphere of the room.
Project brief
Sound as part of the room, not added to it.
A commissioned object for a public-facing cultural and hospitality environment has to do more than reproduce sound. It has to create presence, support atmosphere, and contribute to the identity of the space. Orbita approaches that brief directly — not as hidden infrastructure, but as an acoustic centrepiece.
In a hospitality context, sound is not only about playback quality. It is about memory, pace, social energy, and how a space feels to occupy. Orbita was framed as a response to that broader design problem: a single sculptural form, suspended in the middle of the room, projecting outward in every direction.
Architecture
Four identical modules, arranged around a single point.
Each module is a self-contained two-way system — a horn-loaded array of front-firing drivers paired with a dedicated tweeter. Four of them are mounted in a circular cluster, suspended from a single point above the listener so that the sound radiates outward into the entire room rather than across a single axis.
02
Hand-formed metal
Brushed and polished stainless surfaces — sympathetic to the material language of the café, sharp enough to be a centrepiece on their own.
03
360° radiation
Each module projects into its own quadrant, so coverage is even across the entire floor instead of focused on a single sweet‑spot.
04
Horn-loaded drivers
Twin horns per module — a large mouth for the upper bands and a dedicated compression horn for the highest frequencies — chosen for clarity at distance.
Object & material language
A centrepiece designed for a room that is already designed.
Orbita was built to live inside an architecture that has its own discipline — concrete, polished metal, hardwood, glass. The piece had to read as a peer to those materials, not as an audio product dropped into the space.
The result is an object that is unmistakably mechanical — visible drivers, compression horns, suspension cables — but composed with the proportions of a sculpture. Once installed, it stops looking like equipment and starts looking like a fixture of the building.
Acoustic & experiential goals
Even coverage, no obvious source.
Coherent across the room
Listeners moving through the space should hear a consistent tonal balance — no obvious hot-spots, no thin edges.
Ambient, not background
Music has to support the energy of a working café and film lab without forcing itself on conversation or focus.
Intelligible at distance
Horn loading and a single overhead source keep clarity high even at the far corners of the floor.
Character without colour
The piece had to look like something — and still get out of the way of the music when you stop looking up.
Installation
In the room.
More from Atelier
Other commissioned projects.
Atelier — Commissions
A new acoustic object for your space.
Atelier projects begin with a conversation about the room, the intended use, and the design language of the space. We’ll help shape what the object should be before any specification is fixed.