What we did

On East Market Street, a 1-minute walk from Edinburgh's prestigious Royal Mile, sits the hub by Premier Inn and the Premier Inn, Edinburgh hotels. This combined £18 million hotel development is an integral part of the 7.5 acre site that is becoming New Waverley, a vibrant creative, cultural and innovation quarter in the heart of Edinburgh.

The 130-bedroom hub hotel is the first hub by Premier Inn to open outside of London. Next to the hub is the 127-bedroom, 6-storey Premier Inn hotel. There are entrances to both hotels on East Market Street and Cranston Street.

All new Premier Inn hotels have to:

• Meet stringent brand-specific acoustic standards in order to deliver Premier Inn's Good Night Guarantee;
• Comply with country-specific acoustic regulations.

Our involvement in the development of these two brand new Edinrbugh hotels was therefore to:

• Minimise any external noise break-in into the bedrooms;
• Control any internal noise transfer between the hotels' bedrooms;
• Ensure Premier Inn and Scottish-specific building regulation standards were met.

To achieve this we:

• Conducted ambient noise surveys;
• Provided noise and vibration design advice;
• Undertook in-depth acoustic commissioning tests in compliance with:
  • BREEAM;
  • Section 5 of the Building Standards Technical Handbook 2013;
  • Premier Inn specifications.

Acoustic features of this project

By being involved in the early design stage, we wer able to address a number of acoustic challenges which included:

• External traffic noise from the busy East Market Street and Cranston Street;
• Noise intrusion from external mechanical plant equipment;
• Incorporating the required high performance glass* into the design and materials specification;
• Bedrooms that overlook streets with high levels of activity into the early hours of the morning.

* The high performance acoustic glazing specified by Premier Inn also requires inherently noisy mechanical ventilation. To overcome this, we:

• Tested noise levels throughout the day and night;
• Used noise modelling techniques to calculate noise levels on different façades;
• Recommended how the noise from mechanical ventilation can be reduced where required.

The project team

Architect: Allan Murray Architects
Main Contractor: McAleer & Rushe
M&E Engineer: Caldwell Consulting
Acoustics: Adnitt Acoustics