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Thursday 3rd July 2008
A cultural centre, a church hall and a sports facility are among the first buildings in Ireland to incorporate an innovative decorative block designed to improve internal room acoustic performance in line with new and impending design guidelines.
Acheson & Glover’s recently launched Alphacrete Acoustic is the first of its kind to be manufactured in Ireland and is now playing a vital role in creating spaces where people are able to hear speech and music more clearly and more easily.
Alphacrete Acoustic was developed by Acheson & Glover in association with acoustic noise control specialists, AWN Consulting and Commercial Connections.
Available in a wide range of colours, it has a maintenance-free surface, enabling specifiers to create stunning schemes which not only look good, but sound good as well.
The product works by reducing reverberation or the persistence of sound, once the person speaking - or music - has stopped. It also lessens other acoustic defects such as flutter echoes and standing waves produced by hard reflective parallel wall surfaces.
These were important considerations in the product’s selection for use in a cultural centre in Castlewellan where a listed building, known locally as ‘The Lodge’ has recently been refurbished. With music and the performing arts playing an important part in the life of the new centre, its architects – Killyleagh-based Joe Walsh Architects – used Acheson & Glover’s product to provide audiences with the best acoustics possible.
Another building making use of the product is the Portaferry Sports Centre located on the County Down town’s Cloughey Road. Designed by Belfast-based Kennedy Fitzgerald and Associates, the facility has been built for use by school children and the wider community
Alphacrete Acoustic has also been used to good effect in a new church complex in Ballymena, County Antrim built by contractor Reynolds and Bennett. The product was specified by Belfast-based F R Mark Associates, the first professional noise and acoustics consultancy to be established in Northern Ireland, back in 1989.
One of the specific challenges presented by the project is a new hall in the complex which is used for everything from basketball to Sunday school classes.
According to F R Mark’s Rey Gaston, the diverse uses the building is put to made it ideal for incorporating Alphacrete Acoustic to provide a balance between clarity for speech and warmth for music.
“In terms of interior design, people these days prefer a minimalist look with extensive use of hard surfaces. They don’t like curtains which provide limited sound absorption, can look dated and gather dust easily.
“For these reasons, Alphacrete Acoustic provided the ideal solution for creating a minimalist hard space with acoustic performance that works.
“On top of that, because of its mass, it’s an environmentally friendly solution as it helps keep open spaces cooler in summer and warmer in winter,” adds Rey.
