In this article, we are going to discuss Architectural Acoustics.
Some buildings such as ancient tombs produce an echo of whatever sound you make inside the building. Sometimes you can hear the same sound being echoed many times over. But if a program of music or a lecture or a play is taking place in such a building, it will be very difficult to hear what is going on if too much echo is being produced. To avoid this, cinema halls, and auditoria are designed in a special way so that the sounds produced can be clearly heard by the audience.
The branch of science that studies and deals with this aspect of sound is called architectural acoustics. The fact that some materials such as plaster, reflect sound well while others like cloth absorb sound, is taken into consideration while designing these buildings.
Echo and reverberation are the two important properties of sound. A reverberation is defined as a close group of echoes. When a sound produced inside a hall reflects back after hitting the wall we hear an echo, another echo is produced when the first one reflects back from the wall. Each successful echo produced in this way is less intense than the previous one. These reverberations can be minimized by using sound-absorbant material in the hall.
But if there are absolutely no reverberations the sound in the room will have a ‘dead’ quality. A small amount of reverberation is required to produce a balanced audible sound. The loudspeakers, seating arrangement, size, walls, draperies, etc. are planned and designed in such a way that everybody in the audience is able to hear clearly.
Also Read: What Is Radio Astronomy?
