The Importance of Optimizing Acoustics

Acoustic comfort is realized when a person’s activity is not disturbed by noise and their hearing does not suffer. The opposite occurs when exposure to noise causes psychological disorder, hinders performing normal activities, and reduces the ability to concentrate. According to the Centers for Disease Control, “Continual exposure to noise can cause stress, anxiety, depression, high blood pressure, heart disease, and many other health problems. Hearing loss is the third most common chronic health condition in the United States; almost twice as many people report hearing loss as report diabetes or cancer.”

Photo: Kevin C. Korczyk | Architect: Togawa Smith Martin

WREN is a wood-frame, six-building, seven-story development in LA’s South Park community and is the city’s first Type III double-podium design.

There are many sources of noise throughout a building and around a site, from the continual background noise of an HVAC system to walking and talking among building occupants. Outside noises such as emergency vehicles and traffic can also have a significant impact on acoustics, and, of course, higher density equates to more noise. Such noise can travel around and through ceiling, deck, and floor joists as well as windows and doors. Sound can also travel through fixtures and fittings, such as electrical outlets and recessed light fixtures, as well as perimeter joints and wall partitions.

Photo: CBPhotography & Designs | Orchards at Orenco | Architect: Ankrom Moisan Architects

Since we relax and sleep at home, it is important for sound mental health that noise is mitigated in our personal space. Residential noise issues can arise from floor/ceiling footfall, party (demising) walls, plumbing, HVAC, and elevators and/or trash chutes.

Noise has a great impact on the built environment and the occupants that live and work in it. Noise control can be particularly relevant in health-care settings where patient recovery, mental health, and patient privacy are so important, especially in regards to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which provides data privacy and security provisions to safeguard medical information. Therefore, privacy is imperative in exam rooms, counsel rooms, doctors' offices, and lobbies/waiting areas. In schools, optimal acoustics are equally important, as the learning environment for students must be free from distractions. Productivity is essential in office environments too. In addition, since we relax and sleep at home, it is important to sound mental health that noise is mitigated in our personal space as well. Residential noise issues can arise from floor/ceiling footfall, party (demising) walls, plumbing, HVAC, and elevators and/or trash chutes.

For centuries, wood has been a material of choice for architects and designers intent on delivering the highest-quality acoustic performance. From a violin to a concert hall, wood plays a role in delivering memorable acoustic experiences. Wood produces sound by direct striking, and it amplifies or absorbs sound waves that originate from other bodies. For these reasons, wood is an ideal material for musical instruments and other acoustic applications, including architectural ones.

In large buildings with hundreds or even thousands of occupants, such as apartment buildings, condominiums, hotels, or dormitories, every acoustic detail has a positive or negative effect on the quality of daily life. Post-occupancy evaluations of buildings have revealed that poor acoustic performance is a common problem in buildings with large areas of hard, acoustically reflective surfaces. Ironically, such surfaces are frequently found in buildings designed to be sustainable, where the use of absorbent materials is minimized due to indoor air-quality concerns.

Fortunately, wood is not as “acoustically lively” (translation: noisy) as other surfaces, so wood-frame construction is efficient in buildings where sound insulation is required. In particular, wood doesn’t present the impact noise transmission issues commonly associated with other types of construction. A study by Canada’s National Research Council’s Institute for Research in Construction shows that when it comes to acoustical performance, a properly designed and constructed wood floor/ceiling assembly performs on the same level as other construction types.

Architect Marcy Wong, whose firm Marcy Wong Donn Logan Architects frequently uses wood for its acoustic properties, articulates the connection between acoustics and sustainability in this way: “In addition to the usual sustainable advantages of wood—renewability, nontoxic, carbon storing—there is an additional aspect, that being acoustics. Sustainability is more than being responsible about the impact of a project on the earth’s resources and climate but also on the quality of environment for users.”

CASE STUDY: PEOPLES HEALTH NEW ORLEANS JAZZ MARKET

Photo: Peter Vanderwarker | Architect: Kronberg Wall Architect

Peoples Health New Orleans Jazz Market

For Atlanta-based Kronberg Wall Architects, one of the greatest challenges in designing this 14,000-square-foot contemporary jazz performance space was acoustics. Located in a historic building in the birthplace of jazz—and home to the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra—the acoustics needed to add vibrancy and energy to the music being performed. According to firm Principal Eric Kronberg, part of the design brief was also that the aesthetics of the space should “feel as warm as Louis Armstrong’s horn sounds.”

Working with acoustics consultants Kirkegaard Associates, Kronberg Wall used wood for a majority of the reflective surfaces to create both the desired sound and warm aesthetic.

The team designed a carefully shaped pair of acoustic ‘clouds’ over the stage combined with curved, wood-clad cheek walls that extend out into the hall. These surfaces are designed to reflect sound back to the musicians for on-stage communication and out to the audience for a more exciting experience.

The hall includes salvaged wood planks that are oiled instead of polyurethaned to maintain a slightly porous surface. “The oil finish allowed the highest-pitch sounds to be slightly absorbed by the wood,” Kronberg says. “This helped to avoid excessive brightness and made the overall sound warmer.” All of the wood was installed tongue and groove with hidden fasteners so it performs acoustically as a solid surface.