Acoustic design and optimization of an organic architecture, a cross disciplinary design of an open-space airport case study

Abstract

Architectural innovation, both at morphological and technological scale, have increased the importance of new methodologies and tools for the building performance analysis. New organic shapes have decreased the reliability of traditional specialistic knowledge, highlighting the importance of new methodologies to manage complex models and analyse the indoor comfort. The aim of this paper is to present a case study of the acoustic design of an organic open-space airport, realized integrating architectural and acoustic concepts in the design workflow. The building, characterized by a curvilinear plan, a wavy suspended ceiling, and a tilted façade, behave as a single tall, large volume containing different small low-height closed service boxes. This architectural approach leads to a mixture of functions in the same large volume with a resulting complex problem of acoustic optimization. To that end, different studies have been conducted from the protection from external noise to the optimization of the reverberation time, and to the design of the speakers. Considering the geometric complexity, different tools and a particular methodology have been used to properly model the building and to optimize the use and the placement of acoustic absorbing materials.