We regularly provide acoustical design for schools, in fact we have over 200 school projects listed in our project database since 1980. The increasing demands for multi-use spaces, music and choral rooms, practice rooms, drama theatres and rehearsal rooms, and workshop facilities in schools make the acoustical design, sound isolation, and mechanical system noise and vibration control an important part of the facility's success.

The adjacencies of many of the special purpose rooms can present a significant problem without adequate sound isolation. The selection of wall construction details is a critical step in providing acceptable sound isolation performance. Many schools make use of operable partitions as a means of combining two rooms. A great deal of acoustical detailing of the surrounding contruction is required to achieve even marginal isolation with these movable partitions.

The classrooms, music rooms,drama rooms and gymnasiums all require acoustical design to optimize reverberation time and background noise for each application. We are intent on improving the acoustical performance in drama and music rooms in our school projects to help deliver an environment that works for the student musicians and actors. Optimized reverberation time and early reflections help enhance the communication and delivery of music and spoken word.

Gymnasiums in schools need reverberation control to allow reasonable speech communication, and to suit the other typical multi-purpose applications: school assemblies, music concerts, dances etc. Controlling the reverberation time helps control the noise levels, reducing the impact on surrounding rooms. Lower background noise and controlled reverb reduces the strain on the teachers and coaches vocal chords too.

The requirement for providing speech intelligibility in classrooms should be obvious, but many classrooms built since the sixties offer poor acoustical performance due to a combination of excessive background noise and reverberation. Pre-teen children require a better acoustical environment than teens and adults to learn effectively. We've been pro-active in working with local and national audiology and hearing impaired oragnizations, as well as the Canadian Acoustical Association to help define and improve acoustical conditions that relate to classroom speech intelligibility. We design classrooms and school gymnasiums for optimum reverberation time and background noise levels for speech intelligibility.

In addition to acoustical design, many music and drama facilities in junior and senior schools have a requirement for sound recording or reinforcement systems. These are very different from a school public address system, as these provide sound production capability. We are able to provide sound system design for low-cost systems that are functional, and offer desirable features for drama and music use. We often help school purchasing departments with the acquistion of this type of equipment.

For information on our experience on school projects we recommend that you download our School Acoustical Experience Data Sheet