Vibration isolation for concert hall next to busy street

Abstract

A new, world-class performing arts center is currently being developed in a metropolitan center in the United States. The center will include two grand performance theaters. One of these theaters will be located close to a busy surface street. Vibration measurements conducted at the undeveloped site indicated that groundborne noise from street traffic would be audible within the completed theater unless measures were incorporated into the design to reduce vibration transmitted from the street to the interior of the theater. This will be achieved by structurally separating the performance area of the theater from the surrounding structure by supporting the theater on custom designed, resilient bearing pads. This paper discusses the vibration measurements taken, the projections of groundborne noise and the vibration mitigation measures that were incorporated into the structural design of the theater building to reduce groundborne noise to meet the project design criteria for background noise.