Acoustic treatment for classrooms, laboratories, gyms, canteens and common spaces
The educational learning process depends on the communication skills and abilities of the teachers but, at the same time, the psychophysical conditions of the school environment are very important. One of these conditions is the acoustic quality of the school premises, which is confirmed by a long technical literature that describes the interaction between the acoustic characteristics of the environment in which lessons take place, the speed of the learning process and the general conditions of psychophysical well-being in teachers and students. A low level of listening quality, associated with excessive resonance problems, limits the effectiveness of verbal communication and causes a loss of speech comprehension, thereby reducing the number of words the listener hears compared to the words spoken by the speaker. In a bad listening environment, if we take into account the duration of the lesson and the necessary level of attention to understand the message conveyed, people may get tired by the end of the day. This condition can have far-reaching consequences for learning disabilities and can lead to long-term physiological illnesses.
TECHNICAL INTERVENTION MODES
Acoustic therapy interventions are necessary to reduce or eliminate resonance in architectural spaces, where high levels of resonance are the main cause of poor listening quality. This phenomenon is caused by the reflection of sound waves on smooth and solid surfaces that exist in any space and acoustic correction aims to introduce sound absorption systems into the environment to limit these reflections. The main measurement parameter used to determine the acoustic quality of a room is the so-called resonance time, commonly called RT60. The on-site measurement of the RT60 value is made by emitting a loud and impulsive noise, such as the explosion of a balloon and the measurement of the degree of decomposition of the noise with a sound level meter. It is not possible to go from a high noise level to zero noise right away, but there is always a minimum rumble stay. In short, the RT60 is the "sound length" (expressed in seconds), with which it is possible to measure the sound reduction of 60 dB (decibels) compared to the original value. When this time period is too long, the sounds increase the overall noise and people may feel confused and uncomfortable. In order to personalize the right values and design parameters, a special law on the management of the interior acoustics of architectural spaces was recently introduced (Law UNI 11532-1: 2018 - Building acoustics - Internal acoustic characteristics of limited spaces). This law describes the general aspects that are common to all applications: it defines the audio quality parameters for any environment and indicates the reference values related to the intended use and the audio evaluation techniques.