ARCHITECTS AND ACOUSTICIANS CREATING GREAT LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS
Buildings are not only steel, glass and concrete, but more so how they look, what they transport, what they facilitate, how they feel, how they sound. Jean-Philippe Delhom, founder and CEO of the French acoustic consulting firm Delhom Acoustique, and Daniel Heusser, President of the Swiss Architecture and Project Management company VIRTUARCH met to talk about their experience to build some of the best schools in the region.
Dehong Beijing
Daniel Heusser:
Jean-Philippe, we know from our work in the Eurocampus Yangpu project. We both have in common that we both try to create good learning environments for students. What are the key points from the point of view of the acoustic engineer?
Jean-Philippe Delhom:
In schools, we are talking about learning spaces. In terms of acoustics, we need to ease the communication between students as well as between students and teachers, because learning process is related to communication. It’s where the acoustics part plays the big role, to make the communication easy, to avoid tiredness and fatigue, if the speech intelligibility is not optimized. It is our role to control the acoustic comfort in terms of noise propagation.
Higher performance and improved communication with acoustics at the Eurocampus Shanghai
Daniel Heusser:
As an acoustic expert your see things from a technical point of view. Your goal is to improve the acoustic performance, our goal as architects is to achieve a good overall performance and optimize that, considering the usability of the space, the look and the feel, how the space actually supports the learning experience of the students. And I think one the most interesting things is to design for children of different ages, of different needs, of different intellectual development, of different noise levels.
Jean-Philippe Delhom:
You made a good point: Acoustics is maybe a small part of the design, but it is an essential part of the design, because it affects the way how we feel in a space. So, acoustic should not be seen as an add on at the end. To be efficient, the acousticians and architects have to work together to integrate acoustics into the design. Our role is to understand the core concept of architects and designers, then add up the solution to follow your designs. Again, this shouldn’t be done at the end, because it would disrupt your design and cost more money.
Daniel Heusser:
Key spaces of schools are always classrooms. The students spend a lot of time either in the normal classroom, or in specialized classrooms. For the acoustic performance, is this also the main focus of what you are doing?
Jean-Philippe Delhom:
It’s true, classrooms are very important. Here I come back to speech intelligibility, which I mentioned before. In a classroom, even without good acoustics, you will be able to understand what is being said. But if the reverberation is not proper, you will lose some parts of words, and your brain will have to work more to recreate these parts. This happens subconsciously. Most people do not even realize that they are doing this, but it costs us a lot of energy and we get tired, distracted or we lose our focus. During a long school day, the performance of students will decrease as a consequence. This is why good acoustics matters, also in the library, in the canteen, in social spaces etc. These spaces are all important, because they are also part of the learning experience.
Quiet, bright, carefully planned: Library of Dulwich College Suzhou
Daniel Heusser:
You mentioned that acoustics design is part of the overall school design. I agree. When we design space, we of course think of how this space will work for the people who will use it. For us as architects, it is important to know how the students will use their building, how they will move within the school, what they want to do. We always start from the question what the students would dream of in respect to their school buildings. For the students, their school should be a place where they feel comfortable and can grow. It has to look right, and it has to sound right, not too loud, but not too anonymous.
Performing Spaces
Theatre of Kaiwen School, Beijing
Theatre of Dehong School, Beijing
Daniel Heusser:
In schools, we have quite a lot of performing spaces, most prominently in bigger school projects. The theatre for example is for many schools the centrepiece, the showcase of their excellence. Big schools further have special performance spaces like black box theatres, music rooms, rehearsal rooms, where acoustics are extremely important. How do you deal with such performing spaces?
Jean-Philippe Delhom:
Good question. PACs (performing art centres) are a big challenge for us acousticians, because they have to be multifunctional, even the big ones. Customers want to use a theatre not only as a theatre with plays, they also want to use it for amplified music, for classical music or for dance performances. The truth is: Each type of performance would actually require a different acoustic, a different reverberation. Our challenge at the beginning of a project is to understand the main purpose of the theatre, to understand the priorities and to evaluate compromises that are acceptable. The ideal would be an acoustics that can adapt to each performance, it’s called a variable acoustics. This is quite complex and expensive. So, most school projects won’t be able to have variable acoustics. This is why we need to take time at the beginning to calibrate the project.
Daniel Heusser:
As architects, we try to reduce the number of conflicts. In big school projects, we have the opportunity to design different spaces for their customized use; Apart from a big theatre, we maybe also have a smaller auditorium, which is more suitable for speeches. In bigger schools there are music sections, where we try to dedicate an orchestral room or school band room or registration room, so that each of these rooms is optimized for one specific performance. Then is part of scheduling of classes to try to give always the best room to the user. This makes it easier in terms of usability. You do not need to change a lot of panels when changing the purpose of use, because the room is already optimized for the typical type of use in that school.
Jean-Philippe Delhom:
Yes, this is exactly what happens most of the time, because as you said, the variable acoustics is expensive and has a lot of constraints. Most of the time, we define unique targets for each space. Knowing the priority of performance, or use, we will give the best acoustic for this priority. Even if you don’t use the space for the optimized purpose, the acoustic has to be acceptable. It is a compromise between the perfection and something that you can use most of the time. So, this is the way we do it, as you said, the variable acoustics really most of the time is not the solution.
A multipurpose performance theater with optimized sound experience: Lycée Français International de Beijing
You mentioned the music rooms for example, this is interesting, because there is no universal target to reach. Schools decide based on their educational approach. We have some clients who want a very analytic room for the music rooms. This means very dry, so you can hear all the details. This is good for the teachers. On the other side, dry acoustics means very low reverberation, so students will feel that they are making a lot of mistakes. They could lose their self-confidence. Knowing this effect, some schools asked us to keep some warmth in the music rooms. A little higher reverberation, enough for analytics work, brings more comfort.
Daniel Heusser:
This is an interesting topic. For the development of the children, the imperfection also a value. When we design schools there must be an overall functionality, however it should not lose its playful elements and it should be designed for it. One example: Of course, students should not jump down the stairs, but they do. That is life. So, our design needs to take these actions into account and embrace the psychology of children. I think, this is what you refer to. Looking at the development of a child, we should not only consider the performing values, but also the aspects of well-being, allowing students to explore and test their ideas in a stimulating educational environment. This is an important aspect when it comes to design a school.
In the next part, Daniel Heusser and Jean-Philippe Delhom are going to share with you their insights on the design of school theatres and the selection of materials. Stay tuned.
Jean-Philippe Delhom
Jean-Philippe Delhom, founder and CEO of the acoustic consulting firm Delhom Acoustique, is a Senior Acoustics Engineer with more than 30 years of experience building better environments and promoting acoustic comfort around the world. Since 1995, his creative energy and motivation fuelled the development of four agencies in Europe and Asia, that have kept themselves busy with over 8,000 projects completed on all continents.
Daniel Heusser
Daniel Heusser, founder and president of VIRTUARCH with offices in Shanghai, Bangkok and Zurich is an Architect leading a team of around 80 employees who have successfully delivered over 150 school projects in China and Southeast Asia throughout the last 18 years.
Daniel Heusser
Daniel Heusser, founder and president of VIRTUARCH with offices in Shanghai, Bangkok and Zurich is an Architect leading a team of around 80 employees who have successfully delivered over 150 school projects in China and Southeast Asia throughout the last 18 years.
