engleski

The improvement of acoustic situation in two modern churches

A case study concerning the improvement of acoustic conditions in two recently built churches in Croatia is described in this paper. The lack of communication between architects and (competent) acousticians often results in building visually attractive, but acoustically inadequate spaces. Two such spaces, namely churches, have been chosen for analysis and improvement later on, both having acoustically unfavorable shapes combined with poor choice of finishing materials. As a result, the reverberation time in those churches greatly exceeds the usual and reasonable values, resulting in very poor speech intelligibility, making it virtually impossible to understand the spoken word. Furthermore, the poor choice of shape, although architecturally appealing, results in severe sound focusing, making the overall acoustic situation even worse. Therefore, an initial acoustic assessment of both objects has been made. The objects were then modeled in room acoustics simulation software so that appropriate solutions could be proposed. The proposed solutions were implemented with slight on-site modifications due to fine differences between the models and actual objects. During the implementation, several sets of control measurements were made in order to verify the validity of the simulations and to point to other possible solutions if necessary. The final results obtained after completing the modifications are presented and compared with the ones obtained from initial measurements.

reverberation time; speech intelligibility; acoustic treatment

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