Hot topics in architectural acoustics: Classroom acoustics and archaeoacoustics

Abstract

When ASA members discovered that typical American classrooms were too noisy or reverberant for serious learning in 1988 they began a successful grassroots movement to fix them. By 2002, ASA volunteers produced the first-ever ANSI standard for classroom acoustics. The effort was led by ASA’s TCAA and supported by three other TCs, the S12 Standards Committee, courageous ASA staffers, and elected officers. ANSI Standard S12.60 was adopted fully or partly by school districts, states, and architectural authorities including the Green Building Council. Classroom acoustics research reporting remains active at ASA meetings. We show how this standard helps to make a better world. The new fields of archaeoacoustics and historical acoustics are “hot”. They employ scientific acoustics to study the past. Their novel hypotheses and discoveries attract young investigators to acoustical careers. Sound was more important in the quiet ancient world. Many are fascinated by the 1988 discovery of strong correlation between the locations of Paleolithic cave paintings and cave resonance. Why? A pyramid at Chichen Itza, Mexico, chirps like a bird revered in Mesoamerican cultures. The chirp is explained by applying the convolution theorem to pyramid architecture. Was it intentionally designed? Other archaeoacoustic and historical acoustic examples are addressed.