Influence of Facade Materials on the Acoustic Environment
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Overview
Abstract
Urban noise pollution is a major environmental health problem. International organizations are making efforts to prevent health damage due to high levels of noise in cities, but the design of the built environment typically neglects the acoustic impact of architectural projects. Building facades, covering a substantial part of the vertical surfaces of the urban fabric, have a significant effect on the wellbeing of the population and on the environmental impact of buildings. Facade geometries and materials interact with the diversity of sounds in the city composing soundscapes that influence the health, comfort, and productivity of people inside and outside of buildings. This study gives an overview of the elements involved in the composition of the urban soundscape and revises the potential effects of sound-reflective and sound-absorptive facades. With the purpose of exemplifying the integration of acoustic data into facade design processes, a parametric design workflow is developed to experiment with acoustic simulations of a street environment, alternating between sound-reflective and sound-absorptive facades.
Authors
Alvaro Balderrama, M.Eng. LEED Green Associate
Research Associate
University of Applied Sciences, Ostwestfalen-Lippe
alvaro.balderrama@th-owl.de
Daniel Arztmann, Prof. Dipl-Ing. M.Eng.
Head of Building Physics
Schüco International KG
DArztmann@schueco.com
Jens-Uwe Schulz, Prof. Dipl-Ing.
University of Applied Sciences, Ostwestfalen-Lippe
jens-uwe.schulz@th-owl.de
Keywords
Introduction
In recent decades, the world has experienced unprecedented urban growth. In 2015, close to 4 billion people (54% of the world’s population) lived in cities and that number is projected
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Background
Potential effects of sound-reflective façades
The Henninger Tower was a grain storage silo located in Frankfurt, Germany, built by Henninger Brewery in 1961. The 120 m, 33-storey, reinforced concrete tower was
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Method
As described by Vorländer (2007), for the scope of predicting the exterior sound field, the absorption coefficient and the scattering coefficient for random incidence are important input data used in
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Explanation
The workflow in Rhinoceros 3D, Grasshopper and Pachyderm Acoustic allows integrating acoustic data from different façade materials in a façade design process that benefits from the interoperability among these software
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Conclusion and Future Work
This paper gives an overview of the elements involved in the composition of the urban soundscape, and revises the potential effects of sound-reflective and sound-absorptive façades, including vegetated façades. By
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Rights and Permissions
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