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Acoustic comfort in virtual inner yards with various building facades
Taghipour A, Sievers T & Eggenschwiler K
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16(2), 249 (20 pp.). https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16020249
Abstract:
Housing complex residents in urban areas are not only confronted with
typical noise sources, but also everyday life sounds, e.g., in the
yards. Therefore, they might benefit from the increasing interest in
soundscape design and acoustic comfort improvement. Three laboratory
experiments (with repeated-measures complete block designs) are
reported here, in which effects of several variables on short-term
acoustic comfort were investigated. A virtual reference inner yard in
the ODEON software environment was systematically modified by absorbers
on building facades, whereby single-channel recordings were spatialized
for a 2D playback in laboratory. Facade absorption was found,
generally, to increase acoustic comfort. Too much absorption, however,
was not found to be helpful. In the absence of any absorbers on the
facade, absorbing balcony ceilings tended to improve acoustic comfort,
however, non-significantly. Pleasant and unpleasant sounds were
associated with comfort and discomfort, accordingly. This should
encourage architects and acousticians to create comfortable inner yard
sound environments, where pleasant and unpleasant sound occurrence
probabilities are designed to be high and low, respectively.
Furthermore, significant differences were observed between acoustic
comfort at distinct observer positions, which could be exploited when
designing inner yards.
Kurt
Eggenschwiler
Empa
Abteilung Akustik
Überlandstrasse 129
CH-8600 Dübendorf
Tel. +41 44 823 41 77
Fax. +41 44 823 47 93
E-Mail: kurt.eggenschwiler@empa.ch