Architecture and Building Acoustics

We spend about 90% of our time indoors, and consequently the acoustic quality of buildings is vital to well-being. Our research looks at all different building types: theatres, recording studios, schools, homes, open plan offices etc. Our research:

• Reduces noise indoors to improve quality of life.
• Improves speech intelligibility of announcements to improve accessibility.
• Researches and develops absorbing and diffusing treatments for rooms.
• Creates new approaches for measuring and predicting how sound moves within rooms and buildings.
• Develops understanding of how people respond to sound, to inform high-quality architectural design.
• Creates new measurement methods incorporated into international standards (e.g. BS ISO 17497-2:2012; ISO 140-18: 2006 and BS EN 15657-1:2009)

We are also a test house for building acoustic elements and hold UKAS accreditation for many standard test methods.

Current and future research focus includes:

• Modern Methods of Construction
• Building ‘Digital Twins’
• Metasurfaces and metamaterials for architecture

Archive of old projects

Acoustic treatments and elements

• Acoustic diffusers for performance spaces
• Absorption of theatre seating (EPSRC GR/F05251/01)
• Turning Schroeder diffusers into room acoustic absorbers

Predicting sounds in rooms

• Time domain boundary element models
• Enhanced Acoustic Modelling for Auralisation using Hybrid Boundary Integral Methods (EPSRC EP/J022071/1)
• Adaptive beam tracing for room acoustic modelling
• Scattering coefficients for geometric room acoustic models
• Sound insulation for lightweight profiled metal cladding systems (EPSRC GR/H77088/01)
• Boundary Element Methods in the frequency domain (summarised in Acoustic Absorbers and Diffuser)

Design of the acoustics of spaces

• Acoustics of Stonehenge
• Acoustic design of secondary schools
• Room sizing for studios

Measurement in architectural acoustics

• Measurement of rooms using naturalistic signals
• Diffusion and scattering coefficients for room surfaces (incorporated into BS ISO 17497-2:2012)
• Measurement of rain noise (incorporated into ISO 140-18: 2006)
• Characterising sources of structure-borne sound (incorporated into BS EN 15657-1:2009)

Perception of sound in rooms

• Low frequencies in small critical listening spaces
• Perception of reverberation time in small listening rooms
• Subjective perception of seat dip attenuation
• The sensitivity of listeners to early sound field changes in auditoriums

General contact: Architectural and Building Acoustics

Please contact Trevor Cox at t.j.cox@salford.ac.uk.