Thursday 28 January 2010

Making schools quieter


Soundguard Acoustics Ltd was asked to provide solution to reduce the reverberation time of a newly built sports hall at Clawton Primary School. The school had found that after the construction of the sports hall to the architect’s specification it was particularly loud during activity and testing and mathematical calculation determined that the school hall had a reverberation time of 7 seconds. Building Bulleting 93 (BB93 Acoustic Design of School) suggests a reverberation time of under 1.5s to meet optimal teaching and comfort standards for a gymnasium.

Soundguard Acoustics Ltd specified a ceiling design that would meet the reverberation requirements of BB93, would provide an improved finished detail to the building, would reduce rain impact noise but was also robust enough to sustain occasional impact from sports equipment. The ceiling design consisted of Rigitone 12-20/66 with a plenum depth of 200mm plus 75mm Isover TS48, these materials had the required absorption coefficient to meet the target reverberation time and was deemed robust enough for the environment and provided an aesthetic solution that met the requirements of BB93 and the local needs of the school.