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Wall Panels and Diffusers Help Fine Arts at Woodberry

Whenever there was a school play in the auditorium at Woodberry Forest School in Virginia, the acoustics were noticeably off. Echoes and reverberation were tarnishing perfectly good performances.

In search of acoustic materials and services, the school decided to contact Acoustical Solutions, Inc.  The soundproofing and noise control company supplied and installed acoustical panels and baffles throughout the performance hall

Application Introduction

Sitting on 1,200 acres and positioned between Charlottesville, Va. and Washington, D.C., Woodberry Forest School is one of the nation's premiere independent boarding schools.

Since 1889, the school has been committed to providing its students with a thorough, well-rounded education.  An important part of that education, says the school's academic course of study guide, is fine arts.

"Through art, music and drama, students find new means of expression in a creative environment that challenges them to develop an aesthetic sense within themselves," says the guide.

The problem Woodberry had run into when its administrators contacted Acoustical Solutions, however, was the school's main performance hall, the 500-seat Bowman Gray Auditorium, wasn't as conducive as it could have been to students' development.

"At least half of the seats of our theater were poor in terms of audiences' understanding of the unaided human voice," explained Brent Cirves, Woodberry's fine arts chair.  "And the impression has been that the actors were not doing their work."

In knowing the real reason behind the auditorium's poor speech intelligibility, Mr. Cirves sought to fight the severe reverberation and slap-back echo with high-quality acoustic treatment.

Treatment Provided

Acoustical Solutions took a three-pronged approach to tackling Woodberry's auditorium acoustics problem.

1. Firstly, the back wall of the auditorium was treated and covered with 1" thick AlphaSorb™ Wall Panels. 

   These panels work by absorbing sound waves and converting them into heat energy. 

   Before they were installed, audience members would hear sound waves the first time they passed, then again and again as the waves bounced between the auditorium's hard surfaces.

   Now that the panels have been installed, most sound waves that reach the back wall are absorbed and don't have a chance to reflect.

2. Next, 28 4'x6' Barrel™ Sound Diffusers were mounted on the walls to the left and right of the stage and seating area.

   Barrel™ Sound Diffusers are reflective in nature and scatter or disperse sound waves. They eliminate echoes stuck between parallel walls by sending the sound waves in directions other than directly back at the opposite wall. 

   In this case, the waves sent toward the back wall are absorbed and the others continue to reflect for a short time.

   In performance halls, the fact that some waves continue to reflect, or reverberate, for a short time is important because the space needs to sound "alive," and excessive sound absorption can cause a space to sound "dead."

3. One more dilemma beleaguered the Bowman Gray Auditorium.

   "With a very tall roof over the front-of-house, sound was lost up at the ceiling among catwalks," explained Mr. Cirves.

   To combat this problem, Acoustical Solutions installed 1" thick PolyPhon™ Polyester Panels on the floors of the catwalks.

   These panels absorb the "stuck" or "lost" sound in the auditorium's higher spaces.

Project Results

Mr. Cirves told us the following after installation was complete.

"We can already tell from rehearsals that the fix which Acoustical Solutions has done is a huge improvement."

"We will be bringing an acoustician in soon to tell us exactly how well it's working, but so far so good--great, in fact.  The facility is also more attractive thanks to the new look of the walls."

For more information on this application, contact our sales department.