New opera house in Astana: A recent opportunity to use a room acoustic scale model

Abstract

The acoustic design of the New Opera House in Astana (Kazakhstan) currently under construction was carried out by Biobyte in Milan, Italy (Enrico Moretti and Maria Cairoli) assisted by Gade & Mortensen Akustik, Denmark (Anders Gade). In order to predict the acoustic consequences of the room geometry and decide on details in the design such as diffusion treatment of curved surfaces, it was decided to build a 1:20 scale model, in which several room acoustical parameters were measured. However, the scale model also provided an opportunity to compare the performance of scale model testing and room acoustic predictions by two computer simulation programs, which were also used for predictions in the design process. Therefore, besides information about the adequacy of the diffusion treatment to avoid focusing from concave surfaces (an aspect which is not well described by computer simulation) we obtained data on measurement accuracy—or rather deviations—between the results from the scale model (DIRAC) and the two different room acoustic prediction programs (CATT and ODEON). These results will be presented and discussed in the paper.