Application:
Having recently completed a much-needed renovation of the
school hall, teachers started to question the design. There
was a problem with the acoustics.
Being
one of the most frequently used spaces in the school (for
assembly, lunch, sports and various lessons), the initial
specification was to provide a bright, new and dynamic space
to benefit teachers and students alike.
However,
this was not the case. In practice, the room delivered poor
acoustics and was difficult for teachers to use and for the
students to understand. As a multipurpose space the design
had to reflect the vast amount of activities that the space
is used for and, as a result, suffered from compromise. The
walls, floor, windows and ceiling were all hard imperforate
surfaces offering little or no sound absorption creating a
highly reverberant environment. In practice this was very
disruptive effecting intelligibility and children could not
understand what was being said.
Armstrong
was asked to provide a solution, which arrived in the form
of Optima Board – a highly absorptive ceiling system
replacing the existing painted plasterboard ceiling. Combined
with i-ceilings Sound Field systems the reverberation time
has been significantly reduced and the level of intelligibility
has dramatically increased providing a practical and functional
facility. |
