Posted by MACH Acoustics

ANC Awards 2015 win with Wallscourt Farm Academy

Awards, Open Plan, Open Plan Spaces, Open Plan Teaching 0
Pleased to announce that the ANC Award for Architectural Acoustics, Education Buildings was won by the fabulous Wallscourt Farm Academy, Bristol. 
Why was this project so special?
Years of research and project experience have enabled us to develop a list of design criteria for the acoustics of open plan spaces. By working closely with the project architect, NVB, we were able to successfully apply these principles to produce a highly functional and usable space. We have also remained in touch with the school, so to further learn how the building functions over the next few years. Wallscourt Farm Academy is seen to be a fine example of how to create an inspirational educational environment through an understanding of the requirements and characteristics of an open plan space. Our work benefited from attending and observing the behavior and workings of various different open plan schools, as well as through data analysis from on-site measurements and CATT Acoustics models.

ANC Awards 2015 win with Wallscourt Farm Academy

   

Open Plan Learning

The question is, is it the teacher or is it the environment that governs pupil engagement?  As a result of this question, open plan learning has been on our agenda for many years.
Simplistically, if you remove the walls between teaching spaces, there are no longer any tools to control the acoustic separation between teaching spaces.  This is why a quick web search or attending an acoustic conference will have you inundated with the acoustic issues relating to open plan spaces.  However the photograph above clearly shows that open plan can be inspirational and highly beneficial.
What If We Remove The Walls?
We see that there must be something better than the square and rectangular classrooms that our children, ourselves, our parents, grandparents and so-on were taught in. Hence we believe in open plan learning and have therefore attempted to change the design of these spaces.

The removal of walls means that we have to focus on STI as a key design parameter, and on communication as our tool to ensure that the open plan spaces are correctly designed.  Our logic being that if the acoustic design is not bought into, it will not be implemented, resulting in a space that is not fit for purpose.
The illustration below highlights the main factors effecting STI i.e. ‘enhancing the spoken voice’, left side – yellow, and ‘reducing unwanted noise’ right – blue.  The diagram provides a range of design tools with respect to open plan learning/teaching, and is used throughout our design reports. Of vital importance in this consideration are: distance (between pupils and teacher), enhancing the spoken voice, reverberation control (screening and layouts) and also providing quiet spaces.

ANC Awards 2015 win with Wallscourt Farm Academy



Posted by MACH Acoustics

Open Plan – front loading for optimized results

Open Plan, Open Plan Spaces, Open Plan Teaching 0

MACH Acoustics is distinctive in our constructive design approach to open plan learning and educational building design. We work closely with the client from an early stage to ensure we are optimising the space with an accurate understanding of the end user needs. 
MACH Acoustics rely on extensive acoustic modelling to analyse and optimise open plan spaces. These models analyse:
·         Expected reverberation times
·         Speech intelligibility levels
·         Noise propagation throughout the space and the effectiveness of screens

Open Plan - front loading for optimized results
 
Furniture layouts can then be altered and the areas of treatment moved to optimise the space acoustically to ensure every aspect of the design of the space is working in unison to optimise the acoustic conditions. 
Auralisations are also often produced. This is a powerful tool that enables MACH to fully communicate to the client what the space will sound like and to compare the effects of different proposals. This ensures that MACH Acoustics proposed targets meet the client’s expectations.

MACH Acoustics have visited several completed projects to gain a deeper understanding of what the end users feel works well and what needs more work to ensure we are constantly improving our approach with open plan design in educational buildings.
This results in truly flexible, amazing, learning spaces that meet the client’s expectations.
Open Plan - front loading for optimized results

 

Posted by MACH Acoustics

Open Plan Teaching

BB93, Breakout Spaces, External Spaces, Learning Plazas, Library Spaces, Open Plan, Open Plan Spaces, Open Plan Teaching, Shared Resource Areas 0

Open plan teaching is becoming increasingly popular due to the benefits offered by this form of teaching and learning environment. Open plan spaces offer increased levels of flexibility, sharing of resources, cross learning between teachers and between pupils, enhanced visual and auditory communication as well many other educational benefits.

Open Plan Teaching
Alsops open plan teaching space option 1
Open plan within the educational environment can take many forms; learning plazas, breakout spaces, library spaces, shared resource areas, external spaces etc. These spaces have a diverse range of requirements and needs. In addition to this, open plan teaching is carried out from reception years right through to higher education, and then of course onto our working environment. This further increases the range of requirements and diverse needs relating to these types of spaces. 
Open Plan Teaching
Alsops open plan teaching space option 2
Often, a limiting factor of open plan spaces is poor acoustics. In MACH Acoustics view, this shortfall is due to two main factors; insufficient importance given to the acoustic design of the spaces (i.e. not employing a good consultant) and a lack of understanding of the specific needs of a learning space. It is MACH Acoustics view that the starting point in the design of an open plan space is to understand what is required from the space and its specific educational needs. Once these are understood, the acoustics design can be established and such to ensure that these requirements are met and that the clashes between acoustics and open plan can be resolved. 
BB93 ‘Acoustic Design of Schools’ provides some basic requirements with respect to open plan and these requirements are covered in Section1.1.7 Speech intelligibility in open plan spaces. In summary, this section states that the speech intelligibility level and sound transmission index (STI), are required to be above 0.6 and 1 respectively. The STI of a space is determined through detailed software calculations.

BB93 ‘Acoustic Design of Schools’ also provides advice in the form of case studies which are presented in Case Study 7.2 – An investigation into the acoustic conditions in three open-plan primary schools (BB93 Page 97) and Case Study 7.3 – Remedial work to an open-plan teaching area in a primary school (BB93 Page 107). These case studies look at the effects of acoustic treatments, acoustic screens, seating layouts and other aspects. It is MACH Acoustics view that this information is relatively limited and that better, simpler and more flexible solutions can be found.

MACH Acoustics has undertaken a number of projects containing open plan spaces ranging from open plan breakout spaces in primary schools through to full plazas providing the full educational spectrum to 60/90 secondary school pupils at a time. Two of these spaces include the New Line Learning Plaza and the New Line Learning Plaza 2 at Oldborough School, Kent. Case studies on these two schools are presented within this PDF document – Open Plan Teaching.

In addition to these projects, MACH Acoustics is working alongside White Design and Monmouthshire County Council in the design of two key educational open plan facilities; Green Lane Primary School and Castle Park Primary School. Using this blog, MACH Acoustics will be presenting our designs as they progress.