Acoustic Design
Acoustic Quality
The influence of architecture and the perception of quality and comfort are now widely recognized as being a multisensory experience. In most modern developments, the sense of acoustic quality will be key to the success of the development.
Performing art spaces require a specific acoustics: controlled for theatres to ensure the intelligibility of speech, reverberant for concert halls to emphasize the music, and somewhere in between the two for operas to enjoy the music whilst understanding the lyrics. All these spaces require their natural acoustics to work for the type of event. Most modern halls are also programming amplified events such as conference and music concerts; these types of events require a controlled acoustic environment. We therefore design spaces with variable acoustic systems to alter the acoustics.
We work on many types of buildings, and most of them, unlike a concert hall, require that the acoustic is not noticeable. When we design a museum or a gallery, we make sure that no excessive reverberation, no noise from building services and no vibration are perceptible. The visitor experience must be focused on the arts that the museum displays. The same principle applies to educational spaces, public buildings such as airports and train stations, and luxury developments.
New Technologies and Ecological Imperatives
We also know that spaces are undergoing a transformation: the use of audio and video multimedia tools, virtual, interactive and participatory environments – all these technological innovations are now integrated into buildings and their architecture.
But the world of construction is also one of the biggest contributors to global warming. New constructions must see their carbon footprint reduced, less glass facade and more wooden structure. Our team includes wood structure acoustic specialists.
Acoustics must therefore be completely adapted to all these innovations and our current objectives are therefore to rethink the acoustics of these spaces and help our clients achieve innovation, quality and acoustic comfort.
Our acoustic design service includes three main distinctive parts
Room Acoustics
Room Acoustics aims to ensure that the acoustic response of a space is appropriate for its use. We use the Reverberation Time (RT) parameter or the STI (Speech Transmission Index) which measures the degree of speech intelligibility. But these are only two parameters among many others. For philharmonic concert halls, opera houses and other theatres, other objective acoustic parameters are used such as Early Decay Time, Musical and Vocal Clarity, Sound Strength, Lateral Energy Fraction and Stage Support (EDT, C80, D50, G, LF80, ST1).
All these parameters require expertise that the Studio Jouan team has.
Building Acoustics ensures that the sound insulation performance between two rooms is adequate for their respective use.
We work with the architect from the start of the project to separate noise-sensitive or noise-emitting spaces and thus reducing the costs associated with complex, heavy and expensive constructions.
This also involves knowing the sound insulation performance (airborne noise and structureborne noise) of the various constructions proposed and their implementation (concrete, light constructions, wood and others). One important aspect is the difference between the in-situ performance (R’w, DnTw or DntA) and the laboratory performance (Rw or Rw+C) as the laboratory conditions are always tested with only the partition without any sound flanking from lateral partitions or floor below and above. In some cases, it is necessary to specify box-in-box constructions to ensure that a noise-emitting space does not disturb the adjacent noise-sensitive space.
Building Acoustics
Control of noise and vibration from building services and theatre equipment
The control of noise and vibration from building services and theatre equipment is fundamental to the success of a performing art centre or any other type of quality building.
The task for us is to ensure that building services or theatre equipment does not emit excessive noise or vibration. This includes the equipment itself but also all its extensions (ducts, pipes). These extensions generally penetrate the walls of buildings and reduce their acoustic performance.
We work closely with M&E engineers to ensure that the solutions chosen are appropriate for the spaces and that solutions are provided to reduce the propagation of vibration (springs, elastomer or visco-acoustic solutions) or noise by air transmission (sound attenuators).
Soundscape Design
New buildings are also part of wider public spaces and communities. External soundscapes are also paramount to the success of a development. These require the acoustic study of these conditions, sometimes by recreating virtual versions of them, whilst sound art and sound markers are to be considered.
Soundscape design attempts to discover principles and to develop techniques by which the social, psychological and aesthetic quality of the acoustic environment or soundscape may be improved.
The techniques of soundscape design are both educational and technical.