Dolby HQ Cinema Living lab for immersive light and sound
- Client Dolby
- Location San Francisco, CA
- Size 14,000 sq ft
- Completion 2016
- Program Theater, lobby, plaza
- Delivery Design-Bid-Build
- Photographer Bruce Damonte
Art, technology, and precision drive the Dolby brand through the mediums of light and sound, and these principles informed the design for Dolby’s new flagship screening room, located on San Francisco’s bustling Market Street. The result is a fully immersive experience—from theater seat to workplace campus to neighborhood and city—that reveals Dolby’s unique contribution to storytelling.
Where precision design meets cinematic innovation
Dolby’s largest working lab, this new screening room hosts festivals, screenings, and corporate events, while showcasing the life-like audio created by Dolby Atmos, and the dramatic imaging (incredible brightness, the deepest blacks) made possible by Dolby Vision.
Located atop a parking structure and a subway, and just off one of San Francisco’s busiest pedestrian and vehicular streets, the screening room is completely sound- and vibration-proof, accomplished via 5’ thick wall assemblies.
The building’s perforated metal skin connects experientially to Dolby’s precision-based surround sound. Designed in collaboration with Zahner fabricators, each aperture features retained-tab technology; individual tabs are machined to reflect light at specific angles, creating the illusion of convergence at a single point. This innovative gradient pattern is both a technical achievement and an artful expression of Dolby’s brand.
Dolby Atmos
Over 1000 devices embedded in the theater wall create a life-like spatial soundscape.
