Architectural Acoustics

Architectural Acoustics presents a comprehensive technical overview of the field at a level suitable for working practitioners as well as advanced undergraduate or introductory graduate architecture or engineering course. The book is structured as a logical progression through acoustic interactions. Beginning with an architectural history, it reviews the fundamentals of acoustics, human perception and reaction to sound, acoustic noise measurements and noise metrics, and environmental noise. It then moves into wave acoustics, sound and solid surfaces, sound in enclosed spaces, sound transmission loss, sound transmission in buildings, vibration and vibration isolation, noise transmission in floor systems, noise in mechanical systems, and sound attenuation in ducts.

Chapters on specific design problems follow including treatment of multifamily dwellings, office buildings, rooms for speech, sound reinforcement systems, rooms for music, multipurpose rooms, auditoriums, sanctuaries, and studios and listening rooms. While providing a thorough overview of acoustics, it also includes the theory of loudspeaker systems and sound system modeling as well as an in-depth presentation of computer modelling, ray tracing and auralization. It will be particularly beneficial for architects and engineers working in fields where speech intelligibility, music appreciation, and noise isolation are critical.