Dunbar Senior High School

Wood Panel Grilles

Dunbar High School in Washington D.C. has played a prominent role in America’s African American education. In 2013 they added a new building to their campus with a brand new 10,000-square-foot auditorium. This beautifully designed auditorium features Rulon International’s Wood Panel Grille ceilings and walls throughout the entire auditorium space.

The 600-seat auditorium features 34-foot-high ceilings with steep sloping floors. To help control acoustics, a sound disrupting feature was needed so that sound emanating from the stage area would not bounce back. Rulon’s Wood Panel Grilles were the solution.

The Panels Grilles are attached to structural features referred to as “ribbons”. These ribbons consist of rows of wood panel grilles that run up the walls into angled corners and continue over head across the ceiling and return down the other wall to mirror the opposing wall. This turned out to be a very complex install as the panels were directly attached to a substrate wall consisting of a layer of metal framing, plywood and drywall sometimes referred to as terracing.

In addition to the difficult installation method, the installers, P and D Contracting, had to create the angles where one panel met the other. This beautiful auditorium was designed by EE&K Architects & Engineers.