Acoustical design of

spaces
UNIT V ACOUSTICS AND BUILDING DESIGN
8
Site selection, shape, volume, treatment for interior
surfaces, basic principles in designing open air
theatres, cinemas, broadcasting studios, concert
halls, class rooms, lecture halls, schools, residences.
Call Centers, Office building and sound reinforcement
systems for building types.

Requirements

Adequate amt of sound to reach all parts of the room

Even distribution
Unwanted noise to be masked to achieve required level
Optimum reverberation time

Acoustical defects to be avoided:

Long delayed echoes
Flutter echoes
Sound shadows
Distortion
Sound concentrations

Behavior of sound
Long delayed echoes
In large halls no strong reflections are received by
audience after about 50ms
Average speech rate -15- 20 syllables per sec or
roughly 1 syllable every 70 ms to 50 ms respectivelycorresponds to a delay of about 17m
A member sitting at a distance 8.5 m away from a
good reflecting rear wall will find difficulty to
understand speech
Auditorium side walls and ceiling convex to diffuse
or absorbent material
Corners acoustic plaster or absorbent materials
Better to use minimum amt of absorbent material to
have minimum volume for a given number of people

Flutter echoes
Rapid succession of noticeable echoes
Can be avoided by making sure that sound source
is not between parallel reflecting surfaces
Avoid parallel walls and ceiling and floor

Shape of hall

Rectangular
Fan shaped
Horse shoe shaped
Below 1000 seat capacity, shape does not matter
As size increases , fan shape becomes preferable
because audience is seated closer to the stage
Rear wall should not be concave
Side walls to be broken up with large diffusing
surfaces or absorbent materials

Opera houses

Horse shoe shaped mostly

Concave surfaces broken by boxes in tiers
Audience absorption
In opera , clarity is more important than fullness
of tone

Seating arrangements
Row of people incident to sound are absorber
Adequate vision adequate sound path
Line of sight needs to be raised by 80-100mm for
each successive row

Auditoriums
Speech, intelligibility first preference
Theatres, lecture halls, classrooms listening
conditions should be good
Speech vowels and consonants
Vowels formants persons voice, basis tone of
speech, natural qualities of speech
Consonants intelligibility- high frequency in
rapid succession- limited acoustical power

Auditoriums
Paths of direct sound waves as short as possible
Compact room shape voulme per seat- 2.3 to 4.3
cu.m
Lower the volume per seat, lower the acoustic
treatment to achieve RT
Unamplified speech sound travelling directly from
source to listener is hardly understandable beyond 9
to 12 m
So, short delayed reflections from reflective surfaces
arrive at listeners position with a path difference of
not more than 9 to 10.5 m corresponding to a time
delay gap of about 30 ms

Auditorium

The speakers should produce a sound level at about 65

dB,A everywhere in the seating area.
It should have at least 20 dB of head room so that short
lived bursts of sound up to 85 dB,A can be replicated
without any hint of speaker or electronic distortion.
The natural noise floor of the hall itself should be at least 20
to 30 dB quieter than the speaker level heard
A bright and clear sounding auditorium will be providing
something like 30 separate early reflections, each arriving
well within the first 1/40th second following the initial
impact of the direct signal

a) Direct signals leave the speakers and impact the audience.

b) Indirect signals are those that bounce off nearby surfaces into the
audience.

a) Diffuse late reflections to raise reverberation level.

Absorb late reflections to reduce reverberation level.
b) Reverberation is residual sound that has lost all sense of direction.

Acoustical shells used to enhance acoustics in stagehouse and audience

chamber.
Acoustical clouds and panels used to support acoustics in audience chamber.
Ceiling height that provides sufficient cubic volume for desired reverberance.
Side walls shaped to reflect sound toward side of audience.
Incorporate ways to vary strength and reverberance onstage and in audience
chamber (such as adjustable absorption and coupled volumes).
Quiet so intruding noise does not interfere with performances.
Enclosing constructions that isolate unwanted sound of adjacent spaces and
outdoors.
HVAC systems serving auditorium do not produce disruptive noise.

Auditoriums
Seating
Within an angle of about 140 deg from the position of the
speaker- to preserve high frequency speech sounds, which
would lose power because of their directional characteristics
RT ideal value through out the entire audio frequency range
Acoustical finished should have uniform absorption
characteristics between 250 and 8000 Hz to preventive
excessive absorption of vowel or consonant sounds within this
frequency range
At frequencies 125-4000 Hz , ration of the level of the speech
to that of the background or ambient noise , the intelligibility
is seriously affected- if the ratio is large , intelligibility
improves

Lecture halls and class

rooms
Considerations for speech intelligibility
Lecture halls, one half to two third capacity- having
absentees into consideration
Seldom designed with natural light and ventilation
into consideration
Mechanical and lighting- false ceiling
Volume of 425 to 570 cum or audience upto 200
persons will not require sound amplification system
For rectangular rooms, diagonal seating layout is
preferred- it eliminates undesirable parallelism
between walls and podium and utilizes splayed front
walls as sound reflectors

Classrooms
56- 93 sqm no acoustical problems
Rear wall doesnt create acoustic defect because
length of the classroom is small and usually
bulletin borads, display and cupboards diffuse
incident sound
Projectors, sound recording, producing units ,
desk, loudspeakers- have to be considered

Assembly halls