Acousti-Board
Principles of Acoustics in Architectural Design
When it comes to building beautiful, functional structures, aesthetics and safety are of the highest priority—but, for many spaces, so is acoustics.
The Sydney Opera House, the Royal Albert Hall in London, the newly-completed Sphere in Las Vegas—these buildings and many more worldwide are equally renowned for their unique architectural beauty as for the exceptional acoustical clarity within their walls.
Architectural acoustics, however, are more complex than these beautiful buildings let on.
Acoustics and architecture are a fickle balancing act—an aesthetic feature that beautifies your space may just as readily enhance or hamper its acoustic performance. To make more sense of this complex relationship, we’re delving into the essentials of architectural acoustics—including design strategies, materials, and roadblocks you may run into when trying to optimize your space’s sonic potential.
The Basics of Architectural Acoustics
Architectural acoustics is, in essence, the process of designing and building a space with optimal sound quality in mind. It’s not just a concern of concert halls and other performance venues, either. Acoustic quality is essential in sporting venues where sound can get lost in echoes and reverberations, large office spaces prioritizing quiet work, and a plethora of other buildings.
A wide variety of factors affect a space’s acoustic performance, including its1:
- Geometry
- Material
- Climate
- Fittings
- Furnishings
When sound is created in space, it tends to bounce around until it runs out of energy (a process called reverberation). More accurately, reverberation is the accumulation of sound waves inside a space—and it can make it difficult to hear someone clearly from even just a few feet away.
Sounds tend to reflect off large, hard surfaces—meaning tile or concrete walls contribute significantly to bolstering reverberation. On the other hand, soft, porous materials tend to have better sound absorption and stops external noise from bouncing back toward its course.
With these basic principles in mind, you can envision how architects utilize different mediums and materials to manipulate and enhance sound quality. From carefully selecting and placing sound-absorbing furniture to minimizing reflective surfaces, numerous architectural acoustic design techniques must be employed to achieve the impeccable sound you’re used to in your favorite music venues.
Design Strategies for Optimal Acoustics
The specifics of your space will determine the exact design techniques you use to optimize your acoustics. In general, hard surfaces and angles lead to the increased reverberation that people tend to associate with lower acoustical performance.
Thus, if possible, the best time to optimize your space’s sonic qualities is during the design process. When planning your layout, try to incorporate curved walls, smaller, less reflective surfaces, and softer materials to keep your sound quality in check.
Of course, we don’t all have the luxury of starting from scratch, and most will be working with an established space. That’s not a problem—you can still significantly enhance your property’s acoustic potential using:
- Acoustic panels – Acoustic panels are dense, heavy, and relatively soft. They absorb sound waves that come into contact with them, rather than sending them back in the direction they came—meaning mighty echoes are dampened down to mere whispers. To maximize their reverb and echo-dulling potential, face as many surfaces as possible with acoustic panels. Large, hard walls that tend to reflect sound are of the utmost importance—so be sure to cover them from floor to ceiling!
- Baffles – Baffles hang from ceilings above and disperse sound waves as they make their way upward. Ceilings are often hard and they’re difficult to soften without installing a drop ceiling. Baffles make sound management easier in large spaces while complementing architectural designs with their unique hanging aesthetic.
- Sound-absorbing ceiling tiles – Of course, if you do want to go through the work of installing a drop ceiling, it will significantly improve the acoustic performance of your space. Not every room is suitable for drop tiles, but for those that are, you’ll receive the added benefit of decoupling the ceiling from the floor above—meaning better sonic control in your space with less sound leaking through to disturb your upstairs neighbors.
- Diffusers – Diffusers work much like baffles in the sense they break up the sound wave to reduce the energy and minimize echo. However, diffusers can be placed at floor level (or anywhere else) and don’t require special installation equipment. But, similarly to baffles, they both improve sound quality while adding a unique aesthetic flair to your room.
These are but a small selection from the multitude of modern soundproofing and sound-blocking materials you can use to enhance your space’s acoustics. Other solutions—such as sealants like Green Glue to close cracks, sound isolation clips to detach rooms, and noise blocking curtains to cordon off different areas—will all help control sound in different ways. Experiment with different fixes to achieve the acoustic quality that suits your needs.
Acoustic Considerations in Different Architectural Spaces
Not all buildings have the same acoustical issues. Some spaces may be designed to amplify sound in a certain direction, whereas others may try to dampen background noise as much as possible. Thus, the kinds of sound-controlling solutions you apply to your project will vary depending on its intended purpose. To get a better idea of what materials and approaches you may employ to acoustically elevate your space, consider the different qualities of these kinds of venues:
- Entertainment & Concert halls – Concert halls seek to maximize sound quality by controlling reverb and funneling unwanted noise in a singular direction. Studies show round and oval-shaped venues are the most effective at channeling music toward the audience while negating excessive echo.2 The issue is: some kinds of music (such as punk and various electronic genres) utilize reverb as part of their sound. Thus, concert halls must walk a fine line between dampening echo and amplifying music as it’s meant to be heard.
- Office Environments – Offices are generally short and laid out over a large horizontal space—ideal circumstances for creating echoes. That’s unfortunate, as most offices are intended to be quiet spaces where noise from hushed conversations doesn’t carry and disturb other workers. Luckily, offices lend themselves perfectly to drop ceilings to minimize downward sound eflection. Likewise, they can be subdivided into cubicles using acoustics partitions to cancel out noise close to its source.
- Multi-Unit Residential Buildings – Residential buildings aim to preserve peace and quiet while still allowing tenants to freely enjoy their own apartments. Sound can come from any direction in an apartment building, but since most units are stacked vertically, noise from above is often a huge issue. To mitigate the thump of overhead footfalls, use an acoustic underlayment underneath all finished floors. Sound isolation clips and door seal kits can also help separate adjacent neighbors and keep background noise contained to the unit where it was created.
Innovations in Acoustic Architecture
Creating thicker materials across the board is the name of the game in modern architectural acoustics. As mentioned, thicker, denser surfaces tend to block or absorb more sound. In turn, the opposite is also true—the thinner and lighter a material is, the more likely sound is to waltz right through it.
Thus, modern material engineers have been3:
- Constructing glass panels with thicker glazing to help mitigate sound transmission transfer through windows
- Utilizing denser plasterboard to separate cubicles within office settings
- Incorporating recycled items—such as old plastic bottles—into their designs to make their materials both acoustically and environmentally friendly
Beyond these material advancements, however, architectural acoustics is on the verge of optimizing another kind of technology—Virtual Reality (VR)—to create more soundproof spaces.
Just like we can pop on a pair of VR glasses and be visually transported into another world, architects will soon take sonic journeys to future buildings to get a sense of their acoustics. By rendering the potential blueprints for a space in VR, we’ll be able to more accurately understand how sound will travel, reverberate, and fade within.3
This will allow architects and sound experts to tweak structural and acoustic designs to optimize sound before breaking ground. Then, come opening day, there will be no surprises about a building’s sonic qualities.
Case Studies of Acoustic Excellence in Architecture
Let’s return to the three examples of exceptionally beautiful, acoustically renowned buildings we mentioned earlier:
- The Sydney Opera House
- Royal Albert Hall
- The Sphere
Despite all being built in different eras, varying widely in shape, and being composed of different materials, they all boast excellent building acoustics.
Knowing what we now do about architectural acoustics, it’s no surprise as to why—nearly any shape can be manipulated to produce high-quality sound using the correct techniques. Even standard, shoebox-shaped auditoriums can sound like world-class concert theaters with the professional application of acoustic panels, baffles, and other sound-absorbing solutions
Speaking of world-class concert theaters, their finished products don’t always tell the story of how difficult they were to bring to life. For instance, the Sydney Opera House’s famous design would’ve been deemed illegal had it remained unaltered when the original architect quit the project.4
Consultants on the project believed it was “stretching architecture, […] complex geometric design and fabrication to the limit.”5 Nonetheless, it’s now perhaps the most famous concert venue on the planet and boasts some of the finest building acoustics anywhere on Earth.
The moral? You don’t necessarily need to sacrifice architectural aesthetics for sound quality. If you can dream it up, there are likely materials available to manipulate your space into producing excellent acoustics.
Challenges and Considerations in Acoustic Design
Acoustic design is a difficult field, as every space has unique acoustic needs. As mentioned, some buildings are meant to project sound in a specific direction, while others try to minimize unwanted noise at all costs. It’s difficult to tell exactly how sound is going to react inside a space and—until we perfect those VR acoustic renders—architects must rely on their knowledge, skills, and intuition to optimize acoustic performance.
If you aren’t an architect or sound engineer, however, you may be puzzled as to how to get started on improving your space’s acoustics. Luckily, you can always turn to the professionals at Acoustical Surfaces with any questions you have about the process.
Elevate Your Space’s Acoustic Performance with Acoustical Surfaces
Amazing room acoustics start at the planning stage. Incorporating curved walls, sound-absorbing materials, and other sonic manipulation techniques during construction can make all the difference between a literal echo chamber and crystal-clear sound.
We can’t all go back to square one to improve our room acoustics, however.
So if you’re trying to elicit better sound out of your existing space, consult the professionals at Acoustical Surfaces for expert advice on the matter. We’ll assess your current project and suggest the most pertinent solutions to get you on the track to unparalleled audio quality.
Sources:
- Acoustic Research Center. Architectural acoustics. https://www.acousticresearch.org/
- Russian StatThe influence of concert hall architecture onacoustics (the effect of musical performance). https://www.e3s-conferences.org/
- Sourceable. Major Trends Reshape Acoustic Design Strategies. https://sourceable.net/
- Australian Broadcasting Company. The man who fixed the ‘plain illegal’ Sydney Opera House. https://www.abc.net.au/news
- Sydney Morning Herald. Sydney Opera House 50th anniversary: How Peter Hall took over from Jorn Utzon and finished structure. https://www.smh.com.au/
