Main Focus
The main focus The main focus was to provide improved acoustics
within classrooms and key areas of this refurbished school,
originally built in 1856, in order to create an ideal environment
for pupils to achieve their full learning potential, and teachers
to enjoy reduced stress levels.
Challenge
The challenge was to engineer the acoustics within classrooms
and key areas in order to achieve reduced reverberation times and
improved levels of speech intelligibility. This would create a
learning environment where pupils could hear and understand the
teachers, levels of reflected background noise were reduced, and
lower levels of general noise throughout the school would encourage
improvements in pupil behaviour and a more controlled approach to
learning.
Solution
The solution The solution was to provide new lay-in-grid
suspended ceilings in the school's classrooms and multi-use main
hall, with British Gypsum's Arteco Casoprano VOICE and FORTE ceiling tiles. These unique tiles,
identical in surface appearance, provide alternatively high levels
of either sound absorbence or sound reflectance, and can therefore
be used to engineer the acoustics of a space. They were installed
in a pattern determined by the special BPB-developed Intel-6
computer programme, based on data of room dimensions, finishes
etc.
Testing carried out after installation showed that speech
intelligibility in classrooms, measured on the Rapid Speech
Transmission (RASTI) scale, improved from <0.3 (reflecting 50%,
or 'very poor' performance), to an average of 0.81 giving 99% or
'excellent' intelligibility. In the main hall, with its high
windows and unusual roof detailing, the ceiling system also
achieved an unoccupied mid-frequency reverberation time of 1.06
seconds, countering the effects of the hard reflective surface and
walls. The results were comfortably within the levels laid down by
DfEE for acoustic performance in school buildings.
High Acoustic performance ceiling tiles in school hall and
classrooms
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