Danielle Lehmann: Acoustics Research

Here are the basics: Sound is a vibration. We are able to hear sound because it travels in an elastic medium - most of the time, air. (Think about how well (or not) you can hear under water, the water is less elastic than the air to our human ears, but not to whales!) The vibrations cause pressure changes or waves. A wave can be a compression or void (rarefraction). The number of waves per second is the frequency of the sound and it's measured in Hertz. According to James D. Janning (article link below), "The human ear can discern sounds ranging from approximately 20 to 20,000 Hz. Human speech ranges between 125 and 4,000 Hz." There is one more measurement called amplitude ("how far they [the waves] travel above and below the static pressure of the elastic medium they are traveling through") which is measured in decibels. 

(http://www.lencore.com/Portals/5/Lencore_Docs/Article_UnderstandingAcoustics.pdf)

Architectural acoustics can work to enhance sound and speech definition, but it can also be used to mute sound and make speech less distinct and more private. This is done by controlling the openings in a building, ceilings and floors and the materials used in each one. Materials have different amount of sound absorbance and reflectance. Reflecting sound can be useful in theaters, but too much reflection can actually become annoying to the listener, so in acoustics you also need materials that absorb sound. The balance between the two seems very delicate. Too many materials that are sound absorbers can start to have a muting affect on a room. The shape of the material matters too. Surfaces that are smooth and hard have the best reflectance. Concave surfaces tend to focus the sound in one area and convex surfaces spread the sound. 

While creating sharp, crisp sounds that everyone can hear in a theater is clearly a smart idea to research, I found that I was actually more interested in the idea that architecture and technologies can be used to mute sound and create more speech privacy. Things that can start to make a room noisy are actually the things we learn to ignore until they suddenly disappear - the air conditioner or heater, the refrigerator, a fan or even the buzz of lights. These things can be considered white noise. White noise is a sound that is constant and persistent for span of time. Your brain initially picks up the noise and knows that it's there, but then it fades into the background and you forget that it's there until it turns itself off (in the case of an air conditioner or heater). 

White noise is great to use in places where people need silence to work or think. Open concept office plans have become very popular - everyone can see everyone else and can interact with each other. This seems promising when the office is specifically dealing with creative ventures. The open plan allows people to hear each other from across the room and mutually work and create with each other. On the other hand, the open plan allows people to hear each other from across the room and mutually distract each other. When a handful of people are talking, your mind can become distracted by trying to listen to them in the background. White noise creates an additional noise which hinders your brain from being able to comprehend the conversation and thus help you focus. 

This is what happens in studio. Everyone is in an open room and can hear everyone else. Sometimes this is great! You hear a question asked behind you and the other person doesn't know the answer to it, but you do so you turn around and can answer it. The open plan allows for a lot of collaboration and communication. This can also be a distraction though. Someone can play music you like and may start to randomly dance (and not do work) or someone can play something others don't like and that could be a distraction. Or someone could mention going to get frozen yogurt and you want to go as well - this is a plus for additional social interaction and a work break, but in doing so distracts you from work. 

Three years ago, the AutoDesk company moved to Waltham, Mass. The new building had an open concept floor plan so the company implemented not a white noise system, but a pink noise system (white, pink, brown and blue noise differ in their power spectrums and spectral profiles often associated with the color and its similar spectral properties). Unknown to the employees, the company ran this system for three months and then decided to turn it off one day. The company said that they received a large amount of noise complaints that day. They couldn't identify it, but people were talking about how they were much more distracted throughout the day by conversations that were 60 feet away. The company said that their pink noise system matches the frequency of (hundreds of) human voices. The brain can't "make out" all of those voices, so it ignores them, thus reducing distance of possible distracting conversations to 20 feet. (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/20/science/when-buzz-at-your-cubicle-is-too-loud-for-work.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120520) 

Another way to do this is to have acoustic paneling in the rooms. The panels are rates as to how much sound they absorb. (And the sound they absorb actually gets turned into heat energy!) They are rated with the Noise Reduction Coefficient on a scale of 0.0 - 1.0, but the material must be at least .5 (absorbs 50% of noise) to be an acoustic panel. 

In cases where white noise systems and special materials aren't integrated into the building, people turn to their next way of escape: headphones. Some people say that headphones are the "walls" that people put up to lower social interaction, but really what they may be doing is trying to concentrate and other people's blabbering is not helping them. 

AutoDesk Open Plan

Liz Dolinar: Acoustics Research

When designing cinemas, theaters, and the likes, architects usually consult an acoustical engineering professional who really knows the science behind sound (Let's face it, in the real world, an expert is hopefully going to know more than you can find on the internet). Here's my stab at understanding the basics behind acoustics/theater design.

Terms

• Reflections (early): Heard within approx. 30 ms
• Reverberation/"slap echoes": Heard after 30 ms; excessive reverb can lessen quality of sound/"stereo image" (if original sound is still being echoed when next sound is made)
• Absorption: Curtains, walls, special tiles, seats, and audience absorb sound; Absorption depends on a combination of material and frequency of sound.
• Critical distance: Distance at which direct sound and reverberant sound energy are equal (radius around sound source - depends on sound frequency); More reverb = CD closer to source, More absorption = CD farther from source

Issues with sound quality

• Reverb remains constant throughout room/theater, unlike direct sound, which decreases with distance from source. This means that as direct sound keeps coming from the source, reverb sound keeps bouncing around and adding up until a steady-state is achieved - where the incoming sound equals the absorbed sound. If the reverb energy is much greater than direct sound energy, there can be significant loss of quality, especially at the back of a theater, where direct sound is weaker than at the front. Having the critical distance of a room being as far as possible from the sound source minimizes excess reverberation and is the ideal acoustic condition (reduces echo so sound is clearer). Still, it's hard to determine the "perfect" conditions of a theater - people have various opinions about what sounds best, certain design methods work well for certain spaces and kind of sound being plated, etc.
• Often in large movie theaters, low frequencies are not absorbed well (sometimes due to poor material choices), leading to low sound quality. Good acoustic design can help to mitigate this problem, especially by using fabric (filled with fiberglass is best) offset from walls (often done by pleating fabric hanging against wall) to have a better chance at absorbing lower frequencies that can be the cause. The distance of offset should be ~1/4 of the wavelength of the lowest frequency that will be in the room (the example I found is 6 feet from the wall).

Why it's important

• Poor sound quality can ruin an experience in a theater. If the point of going to see a movie, for example, is to become immersed in the story (the reason why we leave our homes to visit a theater, the lights are turned off, etc.), having sound quality that is inconsistent with the narrative can be very unfortunate. Take Life of Pi as an example movie. When Pi is on the open sea with Richard Parker, there aren't any walls for sound to bounce off of. Watching the movie in a theater with a lot of reverb would diminish the experience of the movie. You couldn't understand how alone Pi must have felt, not having a single thing other than his raft in sight, since your ears/brain know you are in an enclosed space based on the sound quality.
• Architects can help. Theater design can greatly affect an acoustic experience. One of the most obvious solutions is improving absorption to reduce reverb and sound distortion. Materials, including fabric curtains and absorption tiles (on walls and ceilings) can be very effective in improving quality of a theater.
• The Guangzhou Opera House by Zaha Hadid Architects (2011) was designed with help from Marshall Day Acoustics. Clarity and purity of sound was the main goal of the performance theater space. The asymmetrical, flowing geometry of the performance hall allows for greater early reflections. The scheme was modeled and tested using acoustic performance tools, and modified according to results. Many iterations were designed in the process of determining the best balance between acoustic performance and the designers' architectural goals.

http://lenardaudio.com/education/17_cinema_6.html

http://www.crutchfield.com/S-2B00mT6tjJH/learn/learningcenter/home/speakers_roomacoustics.html

http://www.odeon.dk/pdf/Exton_IOA2011.pdf

Liz Dolinar: Looking Out Week 10

These are printed chairs by Nendo, featured at this year's Milan Design Week. The chairs are made from a variety of materials, including OSB and hard wood. The wood grain was scanned and printed on the same piece at a different angle. The process of producing these chairs creates a really cool layered effect and a new pattern to the wood surface. This design is interesting because the original material is being preserved and is visible, yet has a completely different look when you look a bit closer.

Ana Mernik Looking Out Week 11

AFFECT-T architects from Hong Kong made a prototype for transitional housing called the Bamboo Micro-House. It is to remedy the problem of social housing in Hong Kong (apparently 280,000 people living within Hong Kong don't have a permanent house to come home to, and live in undocumented and unaccounted for housing) by providing temporary housing for people looking for permanent housing.

The housing would have micro-dwelling units of only 3 by 2.5 meters, and would have areas for cooking, sleeping, and seating. Other sized units would serve couples or families that are in need of more room. There would also be areas for communal dining, games, and education. The dwellings would be connected by a backbone that provides water and electricity and disposes of waste. Because of bamboo's flexibility of form and adaptability of function, the smaller units can be easily separated, joined, or somehow altered as inhabitant size and use changes. The Micro-House is "a simple and inexpensive structural system to service many different demographics of people." There are some great images showing the production of the prototype.

Acoustic Research

In acoustic design, it is common for architect’s to hire an outside expert for design consultation based on the building’s needs. The first steps an acoustical engineer will make include performing an acoustical survey, determine use and number of seats, and determine a need for audio systems.  Some specific measurements that are crucial to the design are the background sound level, volume per seat, reverberation time, and the need for adjustable acoustics.

Wallace Sabine, one of the earliest pioneers in the architectural acoustic scene, was the first to take quantitative measures of reverberation, absorption, and sound transmittance.   Reverberation measures how long a sound resonates in a space, particularly useful for the design of concert halls. To put the numbers in perspective, a cathedral ranges from 2-5 seconds of reverberation and a concert hall from 1.2-2.5 seconds.  Which is calculated based on Sabine’s formula:

T (reverberation time) = 0.16 V (volume in meters of space) / A (sum of all absorption)

The Tokyo Opera City Hall, by TAK Architects, relied heavily on the instruction off their acoustical designer Leo Branck. The acoustical design process was tackled in three phases. First, computer simulations traced rays to find the diffraction of reflected surfaces to test the feasibility of a rectangular or pyramidal ceiling shape. Then the architect’s built a wooden model to test the geometry and height of the space, where the reflecting surfaces molded to achieve the desired reverberation. The third phase of acoustic design involved real life testing of an orchestra in the space. 

Yasmeen Almuhanna: Looking Out, Week 10

The Harvey Nichols department store in the oh so fashionable Knightsbridge district of London hired Heatherwick Studios to design their window display for the 1998 London Fashion Week. 

Heatherwick incorporated a hybrid of sculpture and architecture in his installation. The installation looks like some kind of invasive mutant growth oozing out of the display windows and crawling onto the brick building, creating a playful urban surrealism. In reality, it is a meticulously crafted and jointed plywood structure, suspended from the facade by a network of steel cables. 

Yasmeen Almuhanna: Looking Out, Week 9

Taking his inspiration from bamboo baskets, Kengo Kuma wraps a cake shop in a 3d wooden lattice. The bamboo pieces are angled at 30 and 60 degrees and do not use any glue or screws to hold together.

Apparently Kuma got his inspiration after he and his team went into the woods and studied how lighting would change within am organic landscape with multiple layers. Personally I think it's a tad too much..

    

                                          

Wooden ABB Fabrication

Cool Fabrication of wood using ABB Robots

http://gizmodo.com/this-woodworking-robot-used-to-build-cars-and-trucks-1547056063

Ana Mernik Looking Out Week 10

Since we're talking about fire safety in Materials&Assembly, and wood in Fabrication, here's a mix of both: http://www.archdaily.com/443626/the-case-for-tall-wood-buildings/

The article talks about Michael Green's 240 page report outlining why skyscrapers should be made of wood.
He argues that wood is the most significant building material grown by the sun because it reduces greenhouse gas emissions, stores carbon in buildings, is renewable and durable and strong, reduces construction time and costs, and offers design flexibility to architects. He acknowledges that fire regulation is the biggest problem.

In another article on ArchDaily (http://www.archdaily.com/483650/tall-tinder-are-wooden-skyscrapers-really-fire-safe/) Robert Gerard talks about the problem of building codes for wood skyscrapers. While there has been developments in tall wooden buildings in Australia and the UK, US currently doesn't have enough research on the topic to pass the regulations. And where the research has been done, code authorities don't approve it as an alternative.

This next diagram is really cool - its showing two curtain wall facade sections. The left is made of concrete, the right of wood.

Ana Mernik Looking Out Week 9 (Spring Break Edition)

Roman Hutter Architektur firm made a wooden retreat in Switzerland called the House in Reckingen. It's made up almost entirely of wood!
The architects wanted to develop a strategy for wood construction that had the same qualities and characteristics of the existing context. They decided to respect the region's past technique - the log construction method - which proved traditional, ecological and sustainable for the region. To protect the wood from moisture, they placed it on top of a concrete base. The interior walls of the base, however, are still made of wood - they serve as an extension of the upper floors and spread the warmth throughout the small house. The log structure is made of larch wood, considered more noble and resistant than typical wood used for this construction. Lastly, the renewable construction material wood minimizes the ecological footprint of the building and also uses no fossil energy for heat.

^^ Love this joinery detail.