Peter Zumthor, Swiss architect, sometimes called “the poet of the silence”, was awarded a Pritzker Prize – one of the highest recognitions for architects. Zumthor is known for his approach to architecture, which assumes multisensual perception. While some have called his architecture quiet, his buildings masterfully assert their presence, engaging many of our senses, not […]
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Noise and temporary deafness
Each of us exposed to noise of certain level will suffer so called Temporary Threshold Shift (TTS) – that is in fact temporary partial hearing loss. The TTS level and its duration depends on level of the noise, time of exposure and noise frequency band. There is no need to visit military firing ground to […]
Guidelines for Community Noise – WHO
When looking for a thorough overview of the research on how noise affects people I always still refer to the document “Community Noise” prepared for the World health Organisation (WHO). It used to be a book, but has for many years existed on the web as well. Here you can find the documentation edited by […]
Let the beat of the music maximise your training
Costas Karageorghis is a jazz musician, a former athlete and researcher. He has been involved in music and sports since some 20 years. Costas performed several studies revealing that music can enhance your performance when training. What matters is the beat of the song! The relationship between heart rate and music preference is key to […]
PUT SOUND WHERE YOU WANT IT!
The Audio Spotlight is a revolutionary new audio technology developed by dr. Joseph Pompei, that creates sound in a narrow beam, just like light. Aim the flat, thin speaker disc to your desired listening area, and provide all of the sound — with none of the noise. Image the possibilities! Technology History The technique of […]
Simplified room acoustic measurement
Tor Halmrast Mr Tor Halmrast from Norway had a very interesting lecture about how to measure reverberation time, and how important it is to be a good “cougher”. Tor works with music and acoustics. When he is on holiday, he often finds interesting rooms what he wants to measure. To measure room acoustic parameters today […]
Why do we need standards?
Katrin Bergmark, Concept Developer – Healthcare, Ecophon Sweden. This question formed the introduction to the overview of acoustic standards in Europe presented by Katrin Bergmark, Concept Developer at Ecophon in Sweden. Katrin talked about the current situation regarding sound in health care premises. Hospitals are often experienced as very noisy, leading to health effects on […]
It’s going to be crowded in Paris this summer
As the summer is coming nearer, so is the conference Acoustics’08 in Paris. The number of registrations is amazingly high already and growing every day. Just some facts and numbers about the conference: Number of participants: 3777 Number of participating countries: 66 Number of abstracts: 3580 Number of oral sessions: 263 Number of poster sessions: […]
NEW DUTCH STANDARD SOON IN ENGLISH
Since August this year a new standard was published in the Netherlands dealing with noise at the workplace. An international interest in this standard will soon result in an english version to be made available. Planning for that is early next year. The full title is NPR 3438 Noise at the workplace – Determination of […]
Meeting with the Acoustical Society of America.
On November 27th to December 1st 2007 the Acoustical Society of America held one of it’s two annual meetings in New Orleans, Louisiana. Interesting areas covered in the conference were Speech communication, Speech perception, Architectural Acoustics, Education in acoustics and Noise. Hot items in acoustics in US right now are privacy in healthcare and environmental […]