Adding ambience with sound: Market Walk Shopping Centre, Newton Abbot

Commercial

Published: August 26, 2026

Designing the system around the building layout presented interesting challenges to even coverage throughout.

Market Walk in Newton Abbot is more of an indoor market space than a shopping centre, but had fallen into disrepair over the last few years. To attract more people back into the heart of the town, the local government decided to heavily invest in modernising the space, with the idea of creating an inviting, busy hub of independent sellers and food vendors.

Having worked with the local government on a sports centre project not far away, we were invited by the electrical contractor to design and install a high-quality sound system, which could also be used for announcements throughout the centre. The brief included the ability to control the system from a simple interface, as staff did not want to interact with complicated software. There were also restrictions on the placement of equipment due to the design of the new retail and food stalls, which made finding the correct loudspeakers a challenge.

Using experience and software, we created a system that ticked all the client’s boxes.

The Challenge: Sound vs architecture and ambient noise

With the main space measuring almost 30m in length and half that in width, along with the general ambient noise level that would be present when open, it was a large, reverberant space which needed careful planning to get even coverage from any sound system. This was crucial; the public needed to hear announcements wherever they were, even if that was amongst the food stalls.

As with any building project, another challenge was making sure that we got in and completed the stages of the work when the building was ready for it. Running cables needed to happen before routes were closed up, and installing speakers would have to wait until the main building work had finished to avoid them being knocked or damaged.

With the space divided into different areas, we had to consider the fact that some zones would be louder or quieter than others, and would therefore need to be independently controlled to allow for adjustment in each. For example, the food vendors on one side of the main hall would be cooking and using the industrial extraction fan units, so the volume required for clarity of announcements on this side of the space would be significantly higher than elsewhere.

Using high-quality, reliable equipment to get results

Turning to the same manufacturer as we had used for the aforementioned sports centre project, we fitted Biamp equipment throughout the building, with a mix of loudspeakers in the main hall, food hall and upstairs café, all powered and controlled by a sophisticated DSP amplifier.

Because of the limited options for speaker placement, we settled on pendants hanging from the exposed cable tray for the outside areas of the main space, above both the food and retail stalls. These were on independent feeds, so they were treated as two zones that could be adjusted to ensure even coverage throughout the main hall. The middle of the large hall was a particular challenge. The ceiling was too high to mount pendant speakers safely, and the walls on either end were around 15m to the centre, meaning a very long throw was required. Subsequently, a large horn speaker was fitted high on one side of the hall, with enough power to throw consistently right to the bar at the far end.

In the main office, a simple control panel allowed for volumes of the different areas to be adjusted, as well as control of the background music coming from a CD player and Bluetooth receiver. This is also where the paging microphone is located, which can be used for playback of pre-recorded messages or live announcements.

Staff needed quick access to the controls and microphone, so we designed the system to be simple and reliable.