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'Listen' to your Building - as it's Being Designed

For the first time ever it is now possible to 'hear' a building even before the foundations have been laid. Arup SoundLab is an immersive listening environment used as a new acoustic design tool to allow the auralisation of any building whether existing or virtual. With listening rooms in London and New York and shortly in Melbourne, it is a step change in acoustic design. Already it has had a massive impact, on the design of concert venues, opera houses, studios, airports, railway stations, offices, museums and galleries.

Arup SoundLab is a room for listening to other spaces. Created by measuring more than 70 prestigious concert halls and opera houses and using over 15 years research to calibrate 3-D models and validate the accuracy of a predicted sound environment, the SoundLab enables the listener to experience the sound of a space or potential space as never before. Listeners can compare the same orchestra playing Handel's Water Music in the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, or in the Musikverein, Vienna, fully enjoying and

understanding the subtle differences between the acoustics of each hall. They can also listen to a new concert hall design and compare it directly to the world's best concert halls.

The auralisation technique can also be applied to a wide range of acoustic design issues commonly found in buildings, enabling the client to understand the problem and determine the investment needed for reaching the optimum solution. It is possible to optimise the speech intelligibility of a sound system in a large reverberant space, listen to the reduction in aircraft or road traffic noise using various types of glazing construction - or auralise the effect of a train passing under an isolated or non-isolated building.

Rob Harris of Arup Acoustics says: "We can actually demonstrate why a space needs to be a certain form. Before there was an element of trust involved, but now we can let architects listen to why a change in shape will improve the quality of sound. Before it was a black magic, but now it's accessible to everyone. SoundLab's real value is that it allows an understanding of what the boundaries are in design terms so we can design better buildings. In addition, it allows clients to make value judgements on acoustic qualities by using a subjective comparison of alternative building elements."

Arup Acoustics Neill Woodger's experience, after three years of client reaction in New York, is similar. "Its where art meets science allowing us to design with our ears and our emotional response. It has enabled us better meet our clients needs, making the science of acoustics easy for them to understand and allowing them to make more subjective decisions on the acoustics of their building. What you hear in the SoundLab is very close to what you will hear in the completed building - greatly reducing the risks previously inherent in acoustic design."

Arup SoundLab is also the best way to understand acoustic parameters - difficult acoustic terminology can be demonstrated, listened to and easily understood. From prestigious concert halls to the London Heathrow Terminal 5 public address system, from stadia and museums to office blocks, any space can be auralised. SoundLab is currently being used on a new baroque concert hall in Boston, USA, the Sage Music Centre in Gateshead, UK, which is due to open later this year, the new opera house in Oslo, the British Library Sound Archive Studios and Florence Railway Station, as well as several stadia worldwide.

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'Listen' to your Building - as it's Being Designed

15th April 2004

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