Depth is the whole play here. Kirei‘s four new acoustic wall panels come from Embossed Panels and work it at two very different scales. Column and Curtain run nine feet and deeply formed. Nalu and Umi stay flat-backed and low-relief.

Column reads as fluted stone, peaks and troughs at classical intervals, except it’s felt. Curtain undulates in one long fall, fabric caught mid-drape and then held there. Air gaps behind both surfaces handle the absorbing. Eight colorways each, joined floor to ceiling.

Umi means “sea.” Its scooped convex profile is so shallow you register it as light before you register it as shape. Nalu means “wave,” and Nalu commits: embossed lines running like water pulling back over sand. 19 colorways for Nalu, 25 for Umi, all finished in Mura.

Performance is there, 0.60 to 0.75 NRC depending on mount. But nobody specifies a nine-foot blush wall for its NRC.

Put Column behind a hotel banquette and the acoustics become the least interesting thing about it. Kirei made the same argument overhead with Tessellate.

_{Images Courtesy of Kirei}

_{Main image is Nalu Panels}

Umi Panels

Column Panels

Curtain Panels