Chandler Archbell: Best Final Assignment Ever!

The purpose of an acoustic tile in a lecture hall or theater is to diffuse sound while preventing echoes.  To accomplish this, I designed a chevron-like tile with different spacing between the raised and lowered parts to create a visually interesting form that looks continuous when put together with other tiles.  The tile also performs well at diffusing sound and preventing echoing.

Process sketch: initial iteration

single tile

assembly of tiles

sound diffusion in action

I then took my acoustic tile and placed it in my theaters.  Here is a section demonstrating the placement of the tiles.  The tiles near the back begin to turn downward in order to reflect the sound from the back of the theater back toward the audience.  The rows of tiles are hung using steel rods that are bolted to the exposed I-beams above.  The material of the panels would be a dark wood with a matte finish because of its reflective qualities with sound.  The matte finish would be added to prevent light reflection in (what is supposed to be) the dark theater.