Sound - Light - Smell - Touch
Moving on from my white cane study I began to analyse the sound dynamics within Liberty Hall. I spoke to a specialist from Arup who suggested a software they use ODEON , however this software was very expensive (far out of my budget). As I had done two grasshopper based workshops with Ryan Hughes (Head of Digital Practice @ Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects), I looked into carrying out the task this way.
I wrote a grasshopper definition that would visualise an estimate of the sound reverberation reflections in a chosen room in Liberty Hall. I didn't include furniture, basing the study on the surface shapes which are predominately hard, flat surfaces with large curved columns. I programmed the balls to change colour as the sound dissipated.
Grasshopper definition for sound analysis
When I ran the study I found due to the current small room configuration, the density of the reflections in time is much higher as the surrounding walls were close to each other. This meant in my test room that voices would be harder to decipher and sounds in general would be a bit muffled.
As sound clarity is key to those with the visual impairments and in certain spaces such as meeting rooms, I tested how I could improve this architecturally. I wrote a grasshopper definition for parametric wall panels and tested changing the parameters until I was satisfied with the reduction in the reverberation time.
Grasshopper definition for parametric panel
My completed panel
How this type of panel would look in Liberty Hall