Hall Design Research Articles

Acoustic scale model experiments for room acoustical design of halls

Acoustic scale model experiments for room acoustical design of halls

A design of virtual sound field simulator based on acoustic ray tracing and wall impedance

The sound propagation analysis using an architectural scale model is an effective approach for architectural acoustic design of a concert hall, and so on. However, the scale model must be reconstructed together, changing the basic plan of the architectural design. To cope with this problem, an architectural sound field has been virtually designed on the computer by the sound field simulator in recent years. The acoustic ray tracing is one of the simulators based on geometric acoustics. It is an efficient solution from the viewpoints of simulation cost and time. However, it cannot simulate the wall materials, because it employs the delta function as the wall impedance. To overcome this problem, in this paper, we try to design the virtual sound field simulator based on acoustic ray tracing and wall impedance acquired by real measurements. We first measured the reflection characteristics of the wall with impulse response to acquire the wall impedance. Then, we designed the virtual sound field simulator by convoluting the acoustic rays with measured wall impedances. As a result of subjective evaluation experiments, the proposed simulator could realize a more realistic sound field than the conventional acoustic ray tracing. [Work supported by MEXT of Japan.]

Hybrid measurement method in room acoustics using dodecahedron speakers and a subwoofer

A dodecahedron speaker is usually utilized for measurement in room acoustics under the hypothesis of omni directional point source. But generally speakers used for a dodecahedron speaker cannot playback low-frequency sound such as under 100 Hz, which is important especially for auralization, while the one constructed of units with large diameter to support low-frequency sounds cannot be considered as an omni-directional speaker in high frequencies. To meet these requirements, a hybrid system combining a dodecahedron speaker and a subwoofer has been developed and actually used for measurements of impulse responses in acoustical design of concert halls. The summary of this method will be presented. The feasibility of this method will be also discussed while evaluating the measurement results in concert halls by changing measurement conditions such as speaker locations and comparing these results with those of conventional methods.

Design of circulation axes in densely used polyclinic waiting halls

The purpose of this article is to explore whether spatial definition can affect the perceptual evaluations of users in highly dense conditions. The particular spatial definition studied in this research was the relationship between circulation axes and seating areas of a waiting hall. In crowded public interiors, it is generally assumed that users feel less comfortable and less safe. As suggested in this work, the disturbance is much higher even where there are less-defined boundaries (where people pass through from different directions) and the space is more likely to be perceived negatively. To research this, a study was carried out in three waiting halls of a large polyclinic building: a clinic waiting hall, a pharmacy waiting hall, and an X-ray waiting hall, spatially designed different from each other. Results from 240 patients showed that the least identifiable waiting hall design was perceived the most negatively. The effect of gender on performance appraisal task was also examined. Compared to females, male users perceived the space more positively than female users.

Unbuilt Sixties: The Unsuccessful Entries in the Christchurch Town Hall Competition

The completion of the Christchurch Town Hall in 1972 marked the end of a process which had begun in 1964 with a national competition, the largest and most prestigious of the post-war era in New Zealand and one of the major architectural events of the 1960s. Although Warren and Mahoney's winning design has assumed a prominent place in New Zealand architecture, unsuccessful designs by among others, Pascoe & Linton; Lawry & Sellars; Austin, Dixon & Pepper; Gabites & Beard and Thorpe, Cutter, Pickmere, Douglas & Partners, are virtually forgotten. These designs deserve to be better known since they offer an invaluable insight into the range of architectural approaches being employed during the mid sixties. Standing apart from the short listed designs is Peter Beaven's more widely published entry, which was singled out by the jury as being especially meritorious. The paper will examine unrealised designs for the Christchurch Town Hall in the context of contemporary attitudes towards concert hall and civic centre design. Approaches ranged from the Miesian international modernism of Lawry and Sellars to the sculptural forms of Beaven's proposal in which influences as diverse as Aalto, Scharoun and Mountfort are strikingly integrated. The paper will also assess Warren and Mahoney's unbuilt civic centre design within the framework of the competition entries as a whole. Such unbuilt designs constitute an important, but largely invisible part of the architecture of the 1960s and deserve to be re-inscribed within in the history of the period.

An Early Vernacular Hammer-Beam Structure: Imberhorne Farm Cottages, East Grinstead, West Sussex

Abstract Imberhorne Farm Cottages 1–3 (TQ 373384) are, from the exterior, Victorian farm-workers' cottages. The outward appearance, however, hides the impressive remains of Imberhorne Manor House, containing an early archbraced false hammer-beam roof, tree-ring dated to 1428. The structure is compared to other surviving arch-braced examples and shows strongest similarities to the design of Westminster Hall, but lacking its elaborate mouldings and sculpture. The lack of adornment enables the detail of the design to be determined, showing considerable strengthening of the braces and retention of the hammer beam and post as single elements undivided by the arch. The construction of such a building within thirty years of the completion of Westminster Hall makes this property particularly important within the milieu of the developing structure of the arch-braced hammer beam, and demonstrates the influence of Westminster Hall in a vernacular context.

Innovative approaches to the design of symphony halls

Innovative approaches to the design of symphony halls

The Royal Festival Hall: A Postscript

In late 2003, immediately after the publication in that year’s Architectural History of my article, ‘Teamwork or Masterwork?’, which discussed the issue of the ‘authorship’ of the Royal Festival Hall (RFH) design, a large, carefully-wrapped roll of drawings of early schemes for the RFH was discovered at the Matthew family house, Keith Marischal, East Lothian; together with the remainder of the archival material at the house, it has now been passed to Edinburgh University Library (Special Collections Department). As set out in this short postscript, they shed an important new light on the arguments put forward in the earlier article, whose text and footnotes should be consulted at the appropriate points, to obviate the need for repetition in this piece.

Exposure and materiality of the secondary room and its impact on the impulse response of coupled-volume concert halls

How does sound decay when one room is partially exposed to another (acoustically coupled)? More specifically, this research aims to quantify how operational and design decisions impact sound fields in the design of concert halls with acoustical coupling. By adding a second room to a concert hall, and designing doors to control the sonic transparency between the two rooms, designers can create a new, coupled acoustic. Concert halls use coupling to achieve a variable, longer, and distinct reverberant quality for their musicians and listeners. For this study a coupled-volume shoebox concert hall is conceived with a fixed geometric volume, form, and primary-room sound absorption. Aperture size and secondary-room sound absorption levels are established as variables. Statistical analysis of sound decay in this simulated hall suggests a highly sensitive relationship between the double-sloped condition and (1) architectural composition, as defined by the aperture size exposing the chamber and (2) materiality, as defined by the sound absorptance in the coupled volume. The theoretical, mathematical predictions are compared with coupled-volume concert hall field measurements and guidelines are suggested for future designs of coupled-volume concert halls.

Acoustics of early music spaces from the 11th to 18th century: Rediscovery of the acoustical excellence of medium-sized rooms and new perspectives for modern concert hall design

The acoustical characteristics of 50 rooms that played a prominent role in the history of music between the 11th and 18th centuries were studied. The rooms include basilicas, oratorios, organ churches, and the great halls and courts of the European palaces. The research provides an understanding of the acoustical features that suit the early music repertoire, and how these rooms achieved an enhanced emotional engagement through their unique acoustical characteristics. This paper provides a summary of the acoustic measurements, which include binaural and B-format recordings in each of the rooms, and presents a unique new approach to understanding their subjective characteristics through detailed analysis and auralization of their 3-D impulse response. The study shows that the timing and direction of reflections in three dimensions is critically important to defining the subjective characteristic of a room. The results emphasize the importance of developing techniques to understand the 3-D impulse response and using auralization techniques for interpreting results and making subjective judgments. The enhanced musical experience that is achieved in these early rooms offers an invitation to rethink modern acoustics and to develop a new design approach that focuses more strongly on the subjective response and emotional engagement of the music.

Reflections on Elmer Hixson’s contributions to architectural acoustics

Although not often thought of in the context of architectural acoustics, many of Elmer Hixson’s research interests, for example in areas such as noise control, loudspeaker arrays, and acoustic sensors/measurements, are applicable to the design and analysis of concert halls and other performance spaces. In this presentation the author will discuss recent, current, and future directions of research in architectural acoustics, with emphasis on the contributions and influence of Elmer Hixson. Specific topics will include sound isolation and quiet HVAC design; the use of arrays in sound reinforcement systems; measurement and analysis of room-acoustics parameters; and predictive, three-dimensional computer modeling.

An Approach for the Geometrical Design of Rectangular Concert Halls With Good Acoustics

In this study it was intended to propose an approach for the calculation of geometric dimensions of the rectangular concert halls, assuring acoustic parameters within the optimal range of deviation for a given mean reverberation time and audience number. ODEON Room acoustical simulation programme was used for the acoustical and architectural simulation of halls. Idealized optimum hall configurations and surface absorption coefficients are determined based on previous researches and simulated model halls are designed with respect to these values. The results are represented in a set of regression equations and a graphic set prepared based on the equation set. The main aim was, as it were, to change the focus from the highly technical approach to concert hall acoustics to a point of view closer to an architects perception of the task, and to propose a prediction model that can be used by designers at the preliminary stages of the design process.

Engineering art: the science of concert hall acoustics

Modern concert hall design uses science and engineering to make an acoustic which embellishes and enhances the artistry of the musicians. The modern discipline of concert hall acoustics is a little over a hundred years old, and over the last century much has been learnt about how to ensure the audience receives high quality sound. During this period, knowledge from a large number of disciplines has been exploited. It is the intention of this paper to illustrate how disciplines as diverse as X-ray crystallography, psychology, and mobile telephony have influenced acoustic design. The paper will concentrate on the design of acoustic diffusers for concert halls, as this is a topic currently attracting considerable interest within the acoustics industry and academia.

明治宮殿の建設経緯に見る表宮殿の設計経緯

This paper shows the majestic design of the Meiji Palace's main hall was not decided at the date of commencement of work, but designed simultaneously with the progress of work. In the process of design, the ceiling of the hall was raised higher, and some western ornaments were added to the walling. An image of the ballroom was introduced in the design by Ito Hirobumias the minister of the Imperial Household Agency, who insisted on the importance of holding evening parties in the palace as the diplomatic necessities.

APPLYING GENETIC ALGORITHMS TO THE OPTIMUM DESIGN OF A CONCERT HALL

Genetic algorithms (GAs), a form of evolutionary computing, have been applied to the design of concert halls. The application of a GA to a system for optimizing a concert hall in terms of four orthogonal factors of a sound field is discussed. The first model was an optimization of the proportions of a hall of the typical shoebox type. The second model is the optimization of the plan of the hall. The results show that the optimized form of the first model is similar to Grosser Musikvereinsaal. The second model took on different characteristics according to the preference for which it was optimized. A leaf-shaped plan is a typical result of the maximization of the scale values of preference for the audience area.

THE PREFERRED INITIAL TIME DELAY GAP AND INTER-AURAL CROSS CORRELATION FOR A JAVANESE GAMELAN PERFORMANCE HALL

This paper discusses the application of a method based on human subjective preference to the acoustic design of a Javanese gamelan performance hall. Some important distinctions between Javanese gamelan ensembles and Western classical orchestra are the tuning system, orchestral blending process, and technique of playing. The results of subjective preference test using the rank order method showed that the subjects preferred 24·25 ms for the initial time delay gap ( ITDG) and the smallest value of the inter-aural cross-correlation ( IACC). The preferred ITDG agree with the ITDG from the room response measured in a traditional pendopo in Indonesia, which is not a common concert hall but an open-sided hall. However, the preferred IACC is not in agreement with the measured ITDG in the pendopo .

Pilot study: Exposure and materiality of the secondary room and its impact in the impulse response of coupled-volume concert halls

What does one room sound like when it is partially exposed to another (acoustically coupled)? More specifically, this research aims to quantify how operational and design decisions impact aural impressions in the design of concert halls with acoustical coupling. By adding a second room to a concert hall, and designing doors to control the sonic transparency between the two rooms, designers can create a new, coupled acoustic. Concert halls use coupling to achieve a variable, longer, and distinct reverberant quality for their musicians and listeners. For this study, a coupled-volume shoebox concert hall was conceived with a fixed geometric volume, form, and primary-room sound absorption. Aperture size and secondary-room sound-absorption levels were established as variables. Statistical analysis of sound decay in this simulated hall suggests a highly sensitive relationship between the double-sloped condition and (1) Architectural composition, as defined by the aperture size exposing the chamber and (2) Materiality, as defined by the sound absorbance in the coupled volume. Preliminary calculations indicate that the double-sloped sound decay condition only appears when the total aperture area is less than 1.5% of the total shoebox surface area and the average absorption coefficient of the coupled volume is less than 0.07.

Low-energy design: combining computer-based optimisation and human judgement

Simply minimising the heat loss from a building will not necessarily lead to an exemplary low-energy design: overheating may occur, leading to a large amount of cooling energy being used, and the shape and form of the design may not fit with other sensitivities and elements of the design brief. This paper couples a population-based optimisation algorithm (a genetic algorithm) to a dynamic thermal model with the idea of identifying large numbers of distinctly different low-energy designs. These designs are then presented to the user in the form of a visual summary for judgement as to potential use. In order that sufficiently different designs are evolved, and the thermal model can be run over a complete year on an hourly grid, several adaptations to the genetic algorithm have had to be made. The approach is illustrated by the design of a community hall. An extensive range of design possibilities is identified which achieve low-energy status by greatly different means with some concentrating on reducing losses and others on maximising their use of causal gains, including solar gains.

Concert hall acoustics—2001

A brief summary is made of major factors encountered in today’s acoustical design of concert halls, including preferred reverberation times, loudness, lateral reflections, seat absorption, suspended panels, need for irregular surfaces to create sound diffusion and eliminate acoustical ‘‘glare,’’ and objective measurement techniques developed from laboratory experiments that can be used to estimate subjective acoustical quality. Objective measurements of these factors have been made in over 70 halls. The results are plotted versus subjective rank-orderings of acoustical quality for these halls. The rank-orderings were obtained from interviews and questionnaires involving conductors, music critics, and music aficionados. The objective quantities plotted are reverberation time, early decay time, spaciousness, lateral fraction, interaural cross-correlation coefficient, initial-time-delay gap, strength factor (sound level), bass ratio, 125-Hz level, and surface diffusivity index.

Improving the acoustic working conditions for musicians in small spaces

In the acoustic consulting, testing, design and engineering work of the Fraunhofer-Institute of Building Physics (IBP) the low-frequency end of the noise spectra and the room acoustic conditioning has gained tremendous importance over the years. For solving the long-ranging noise pollution from e.g. exhaust stacks and chimneys, a series of low-frequency sound attenuators with minimum flow resistance were developed. Its first representative was a novel membrane absorber [10] [Ackermann U, et al., Sound absorbers of a novel membrane construction. Applied Acoustics 1998;25:197–215]. Thanks to its slenderness and ruggedness it could also be employed for noise control and reverberation adjustment purposes in relatively narrow enclosures and harsh environments [11,12] [Vér IL. Enclosures and wrappings. In: Harris CM, editor. Handbook of acoustical measurements and noise control. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1991; Fuchs HV, Hunecke J. The room plays its part at low frequencies. Das Musikinstrument 1993;42:40–6 (in German). Meanwhile a new type of panel absorber has been optimized for both kinds of application. Its absorption efficiency at frequencies far below 100 Hz could be demonstrated and quantified by a special measuring procedure based on the reverberation of a small rectangular room at its eigenfrequencies [3] (Zha X, et al. Measurements of an effective absorption coefficient below 100 Hz. Acoustics Bulletin 1999;24:5–10). With the aid of this novel tool it is now possible to qualify reverberation rooms and anechoic chambers for frequencies down to 63 and 31 Hz, respectively [9] (Fuchs HV, et al. Qualifying freefield and reverberation rooms for frequencies below 100 Hz. Applied Acoustics 2000;59:303–22). In a companion paper in this same journal [4] [Fuchs HV, et al.: Creating low-noise environments in communication rooms. Applied Acoustics (in print)] appropriate experience is reported in creating low-noise environments in multi-purpose rooms like offices, restaurants, foyers and seminars. A number of representative case studies [5] (Drotleff H, et al. : Attractive acoustic design of multi-purpose halls. 1. Chinese–German Platform Innovative Acoustics 2000, (October, 21–25. 2000)) show ample evidence that the low-frequency performance of the rooms has a strong influence on both the amplification of intruding external noise and the development of internally generated noise emanating from communication processes provoked by the users themselves. At work places where producing sound (by voices or/and instruments) is the main or only purpose for their existence, the acoustic qualification of the room at low frequencies turns out to be of the utmost importance, especially when musicians are forced to work in extremely narrow spaces like orchestra pits and rehearsal halls for many hours a day and often under extreme physical and mental pressure. The measures taken and described herein have proven to mitigate if not remove some of the acoustic burden put on musicians employed in states theatres.