Architectural Acoustics: Principles and Practice

A method to evaluate the integrated architectural acoustic and reinforced sound systems for medium to large size worship and performance spaces using computer modeling of the systems for new facilities and diagnostic impulse response based measurements in existing rooms is presented. Four case studies of varying degrees of design integration of architectural acoustic and sound systems are presented to illustrate the method. Case study 1 is a divisible multi-purpose worship space. The sound system equipment and design was done without considering the acoustical design of the room. It was decided to re-use the existing equipment and adjust the aiming and programming of the system to fit the acoustics and architecture of the room to optimize the balance of natural and reinforced sounds. The second case study covers the design of a theater with a distributed array system to reinforce theatrical and musical sounds on stage. The third case study covers the installation of a new sound system in a large worship space with an organ and a very long reverberation time. The fourth case study covers the diagnostics, architectural and sound system improvements in a unique space for symposia on a college campus.

Six fundamental sound reinforcement system types and corresponding case studies are presented, along with consistent features, target values for room acoustics, different system layout approaches and verification methods. The relevant applicable regulations and standards are mentioned. Paging and alarm systems covering public spaces such as transportation hubs, shopping malls, lobbies, spaces in office buildings, hospitals and schools as well as open-air venues are discussed. Within the sports facilitysection, large rooms for sport events, sport halls and sport stadia are covered. Requirements for sound reinforcement and sound coverage for different stadia designs are explained. Section 11.3 briefly explains sound system layouts for hotels, museums and convention centres with their respective target values and specific considerations. Theatres (classical opera houses, drama and repertoire theatres) and concert halls (shoebox and modern vineyard geometry) with their respective acoustical and sound system-related issues are extensively described in section 11.4. The tasks for sound reinforcement systems in these facilities, including the use of enhancement systems, are clarified. Section 11.5 briefly deals with multipurpose halls, explaining their room acoustical parameters and usage profile. Different methods for decreasing and increasing the reverberation time are explained. Sound installations in different religious buildings are discussed in the last section, with a focus on Jewish synagogues, Christian churches and Islamic mosques and their different acoustics and sound system requirements.

Article was devoted for a study of vineyard configuration concert halls, considered as a concept allowing most innovative approach to the architectural and acoustical design, contemporary now and outgoing to the feature. Concept is based on two simple architectural manipulations that change overall spatial and sound perception of the room. Thus, there were two main aims set and proven: first-the most favourable acoustic conditions among today's concert halls with capacity over 1800 listeners can be provided by vineyard configuration, second-terrace solutions, alternative to rooms with boxed configurations and balconies, delivers architects the new possibilities for spatial shaping of concert interiors. Moreover, elaboration presents the authors’ definition of vineyard configuration, which targets at capturing all features of arrangement. Showing the favourable aspects of hall comes together with revealing limitations, in order to keep the study as fair as possible. Research were based on thorough and yearslong study for of both acoustical and architectural domains in pursuit of prove for novelty and usability of vineyardconfiguration over others existing concert hall layouts. The method of research was: analysis, cooperative analysis, and mostly graphical analysis of photographs and illustrations gathered in situ and with the use of literature review. In the formulation of conclusions synthesis and critical review were used, for acoustical issues like: reverberation time, lateral acoustical wave reflection, volume, clarity, Initial Time Delay Gap (ITDG), Intermural Cross Correlation (IACC), acoustical field spaciousness and blend and architectural issues like: layout size, volume, visual perception of the interiors, overall room geometry, evacuation, capacity and human interactions.

This special issue of Psychomusicology: Music, Mind, & Brain, entitled Performance Spaces for Music: Acoustical and Psychological Measurements and Their Interactions, is dedicated to Dr. Leo Beranek not only in acclaim of his 100th birthday in 2014 but also in recognition of his lifelong contributions to the field of architectural acoustics. The significance his work as a researcher, consultant, and author is manifested in countless ways and seems impossible to overestimate. His books, Music, Acoustics, and Architecture (1962), Concert Halls and Opera Houses: How They Sound (1996), and Concert Halls and Opera Houses: Music, Acoustics, and Architecture (2004), represent one of the most important textbook series in concert hall acoustics, and has significance far greater than the sum of its parts. The impetus from reading these works ranges from fuelling an individual's interest and enthusiasm for concert hall acoustics to building bridges between experts from different fields collaborating on concert hall projects, allowing both scientists and practitioners to figuratively stand upon Leo Beranek's giant's shoulders so as to see a little further.There is no doubt that the initial publication of Beranek's book in 1962 on concert hall acoustics triggered ongoing research on how sound is perceived in auditoria. This ranges from the initial works of Hawkes and Douglas (1971) in London, United Kingdom; the works by the Gottingen group (e.g., Gottlob, 1973); and research in Berlin, Germany; (Wilkens, 1977) to more recent works by Barron (1988) in the United Kingdom and Lokki, Patynen, Kuusinen, and Tervo (2012) in Finland. Their studies and many others have refined the fundamental ideas that Leo Beranek had put into discussion.Scientific research on panel reflector arrays, audience absorption of grazing sound (also known as the seat dip effect), and interaural cross correlation as a predictor of spatial perception of sound all carry the distinctive signature of Leo Beranek's work as a consultant on many outstanding projects. Just to name a few, these projects include the Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall, the New National Theater (also in Tokyo), the Philharmonic Hall in New York, The Koussevitzky Music Shed (formerly The Tanglewood Music Shed) in Massachusetts, and the Frederic R. Mann Auditorium in Tel Aviv, Israel.To the present day, Leo Beranek is an active member of the acoustics community and continues to give lectures to an audience that eagerly absorbs the concepts he describes. One of the outstanding characteristics of these talks may be their clarity and the da Vinci-like simplicity that make the distinct multidisciplinarity of architectural acoustics seem easy to grasp. This achievement becomes clear when the diversity of the articles in this special issue are taken as a tangible example.This special issue begins with a biography that briefly chronicles Leo Beranek's life, illustrating the incredible development from his early days in farm-town Iowa to the present day being a world renowned expert of acoustics, a former Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor, and the founder of Bolt, Beranek, and Newman-just to name a few corner points of his multifaceted career. In his article, Leo Beranek shows in an unparalleled way how a long experience in the field allows him to present complex relations in a clear way with a distinct view to the core essentials.The editors of this special issue are in debt to the authors who have provided such a circumferential collection of papers that are worth the reading. Moreover, the support and enduring commitment from all the reviewers was of great assistance to the authors and editors, who together brought this special issue to completion after months of hard work.Organization of the Contributions: The Communication ChainThe order of manuscripts in scientific periodicals is often categorized by the severity of the review process undergone. …

Frederick Vinton Hunt profoundly affected the course of architectural acoustics. As the de facto successor to W. C. Sabine, he began his acoustical career by utilizing the Sabine reverberation chamber at Harvard University in the early 1930s to introduce accuracy into reverberation‐time measurements. Stimulated by P. M. Morse’s Chap. VIII in Vibration and Sound (1936), Professor Hunt explored the sound field in a rectangular, marble‐walled box and published in 1939 a new means for measuring sound‐absorption coefficients of acoustical materials as a function of angle of wave incidence and, in addition, the details of a high‐impedance, research sound source. As a continuing step he, with his students, expanded the application of the normal‐mode‐of‐vibration theory of acoustics to full‐scale rectangular rooms in which acoustical materials were present on one or more walls. Although he subsequently developed research interests in other fields, his papers in architectural acoustics touched off scores of published works by his students and their colleagues. Examples of his contributions that can be found today include techniques for reverberation measurement, the meaning of sound diffusion in spaces, the design of auditoriums for speech and music, and the principles of audio reinforcement and reproduction. This paper summarizes the present‐day status of concert hall design, with emphasis on those elements of architecture that must be controlled if satisfactory results are to be obtained.

The 1980s are likely to see a continuation of the trend of the past 25 years of an expansion in the quantity, and improvement in the quality, of public music making. Concert halls are usually prestigious buildings, and often no expense is spared to make the acoustics as good as possible, but the design problems are still formidable. In the 1980s some considerable help in design may be expected from scale models and computer simulation. And electronic aids for acoustics may become more common. The problems of multi-purpose halls are rather different; the conflicting acoustic requirements for speech and for music have to be reconciled, and cost is important. Here electronic techniques may play a considerable part in the future.

The technologies of music configure and reconfigure our relationship with space. Dating back centuries to the earliest examples of notation and printing, technology has made it possible for music to move across distances and cultures, and the circulation of music has allowed for the circulation of aesthetics, values, and power. But even when music stays rooted in place, it influences our sense of the spaces in which we encounter it. At the same time these spaces, whether caves, cathedrals, or concert halls, shape how we create and hear music. This chapter probes the relationship between music and space through case studies on architectural acoustics, printed notation and its use in Western imperialism, the boombox and Walkman, x-ray records in the U.S.S.R, and the circulation of music via portable drives in Cuba.

In the late 90s, we were tasked with designing a sound reinforcement system that would provide great speech intelligibility, in a highly reverberant space, without modifying any of the architectural finishes. The sound system had to support different types of events, held in different locations within the space, and with varying audience sizes. In 2015, we were asked to revisit the original loudspeaker design, and upgrade the sound system in that same space. Flash forward a few more years, and the entire building is getting a renovation—and we are once again designing a completely new sound system. This paper presents a case study of the upgrades, and describes the challenges, the lessons learned, and the changes in approach from the original upgrade through to the most recent design.

Architectural acoustics design has in the past been based on simple design rules. However, with a growing complexity in architectural acoustics and the emergence of room acoustic simulation programmes with considerable potential, it is now possible to subjectively analyse and evaluate acoustic properties prior to the actual construction of a building. With the right tools applied, acoustic design can become an integral part of the architectural design process. The aim of this paper is to investigate the field of application that an acoustic simulation programme can have during an architectural acoustic design process and to set up a strategy to develop future programmes. The emphasis is put on the first three out of four phases in the working process of the architect and a case study is carried out in which each phase is represented by typical results – as exemplified with reference to the design of Bagsvaerd Church by Jørn Utzon. The paper discusses the advantages and disadvantages of the programme in each phase compared to the works of architects not using acoustic simulation programmes. The conclusion of the paper points towards the need to apply the acoustic simulation programmes to the first phases in the architectural process and set out a reverse strategy for simulation programmes to do so – from developing acoustics from given spaces to developing spaces from given acoustics.

As relates to live performance, the purview of sound quality in architectural acoustics is mostly limited to concert halls. While the concert hall is perhaps the most common setting in which to hear live Western classical music in our present day, this was not always the case historically. As will be shown from analysis of published text as well as interviews with music critics, artists, and concert-goers, a variety of alternatives to the concert hall exists currently in the form of domestic settings, casual settings like coffee shops, as well as large outdoor settings like farms and parks. The advantages and disadvantages of such alternative venues, as concerns the overall concert experience and the quality metric of intimacy particularly, will be discussed. Moreover, design issues relating to the acoustical environment as well as the social environment in these venues will be discussed based on the data. This paper will ideally foster discussion in the acoustical and the architectural community on ways to expand the traditional concert hall experience as well as address design issues in alternative venues. [Work supported by ASA Minority Fellowship and RPI Humanities, Arts, Architecture, and Social Sciences Fellowship.]

The Arts Center Incheon (ACI) concert hall was designed to have 1,760 seats, the volume of 18,000 m3 and the reverberation time of 2.1s with seats fully occupied. To achieve the auditory and visual intimacy, the concert hall had a reverse fan shape with a combination of vineyard and balcony. Various scale models and computer simulation were used to determine the acoustical design including the volume of hall, locations of walls and shapes of finishing materials. Three types of sound diffusers were applied according to wall locations. Appropriate protrusion heights were determined based on sound diffusion targets by each part such as the stage and the sides and back of the auditorium. During the execution design stage, a 1:10 scale model of this concert hall was fabricated to measure acoustic characteristics. An auralization experiment was conducted to assess psycho-acoustic responses to the diffusion design. The acoustic measurements after construction matched the design objectives.

Effects of surface diffusion from lateral walls on concert hall acoustics were investigated to determine diffuser profiles. The design factors of diffusers in concert halls are geometrical shape, structural height, and surface coverage. Diffusion and scattering coefficients of the diffusers were measured in a 1:10 scale model reverberation chamber. Then, it was applied to scale model concert halls by design factors of diffusers. Acoustical parameters such as RT, EDT, C80, and sound pressure level (SPL) were calculated from the impulse responses. In addition, the numbers and amplitudes of the reflection peaks within −20 dB after the direct sound were calculated to evaluate the diffuseness in the halls. As a result, diffusers commonly yielded decrease in RT and SPL but contributed to increase in uniformity of RT and SPL. It was also found that the diffusive lateral surfaces close to the stage area are more effective in increasing both Np and ES. Appropriate design directions of diffuser are discussed from t...

The separate acoustical criteria for churches and concert halls are presented from the viewpoint of a pipe organ builder—a former college physics teacher and president of the Associated Pipe Organ Builders of America. Developed from considerations of the different functions and purposes of churches and concert halls, the criteria are markedly different and even contradictory for these situations. Beranek’s ‘‘Music, Acoustics & Architecture’’ is referenced.

With the work of Wallace C. Sabine on the lecture hall of the Fogg Art Museum and concert hall of Boston Symphony Hall, a foundation for the field of architectural acoustics as a science was laid between 1895 and 1900. Prior to that, architects employed various notions in acoustic design. Previous studies by the authors have reviewed 18th and 19th century design guidelines that were based on the quantification of the perception threshold between direct sound and first order reflections, with these guidelines being followed in the design of several rooms with acoustical demands. This study reviews an alternate metric guideline, based on the directivity and propagation distance of the human voice, which was utilized in several halls also during the 18th and 19th centuries. The related acoustic experiments tested how far sound was perceivable towards the front, sides, and rear of a speaking person. These ratios were used in the acoustical design of at least five lecture halls, four theater halls, one opera hall, and one concert hall, constructed in Germany, England, and the USA. These historic designs, and comparisons to modern measures and guidelines, are reviewed.

In K-12 schools, the library functional space is now usually called the media center, as this space houses and disseminates information that is stored on both print and digital media. These spaces have fewer sound absorbent book stacks than were found in previous print-only libraries. Instead, computer workstations for student access to local and web-based material are provided. Often these facilities are used as group learning spaces, with several group classes occurring simultaneously. These changes to the traditional school library space present challenges to the acoustical design. Another challenge is that in a number of school districts across the US, a media center must be designed to meet the requirements of ANSI/ASA 12.60-2010/Part 1, “American National Standard Acoustical Performance Criteria, Design Requirements and Guidelines for Schools, Part 1: Permanent Schools,” also known as the “Classroom acoustics standard.” This is because a media center can be defined as a core learning space that is subject to that standard, with its requirements for low noise and reverberation, and for higher sound isolation from adjacent spaces. Several case studies are presented which highlight the design challenges for modern school media centers, and the successful design solutions.