Fortunately, firms such as Acentech, a multidisciplinary acoustical consulting firm with offices along the East Coast as well as one in Los Angeles, provide architectural acoustics, A/V design, noise control and vibration control for a variety of commercial interior settings. The firm is also deep into the educational market, including a flagship project now underway in New Haven: the new Science Building at Yale University.

The new seven-story, 277,550-square-foot, facility was designed by architecture firms Pelli Clarke Pelli and Stantec (both of which have offices in New Haven), and reimagines the existing J.W. Gibbs Laboratory into a state-of-the-art center for collaborative scientific research. The new building will include a 500-seat lecture hall, aquatics and insect labs, quantitative biology center, imaging suites, shared commons and a rooftop greenhouse. To wit, it will be loud. To address the noise, Acentech is providing highly absorptive finishes, wall construction and even mechanical system noise control.

The facility includes a large lecture hall with sophisticated audiovisual systems, including video conferencing capabilities and support for cinema presentations with surround sound and numerous meeting and collaboration spaces for building users. There will also be smaller student gathering spaces distributed among the professors’ private offices to encourage interaction between faculty and students in an organic manner.

Chief among the concerns Acentech is addressing is the possibility of sounds emanating from one environment wreaking havoc on another. Sensitive laboratory equipment that is susceptible to noise or the vibrations certain noises can produce can become problematic to a variety of research situations. Acentech’s collective, holistic approach to acoustics, A/V, IT infrastructure and security systems will endeavor to mitigate the possibility that such disturbances. For example, video projectors are notorious for their buzzing or the wheezing of their cooling fans — a minor, if an irritating issue on most occasions, but then, most occasions don’t involve an electron microscope and researchers doing delicate research work. Interference on that level can interfere with the validity and accuracy of work being done, which is unacceptable to a center of higher education of Yale’s caliber.

In a report filed by the National Institutes of Health technical bulletin, several factors must be evaluated to determine whether the overall environment for an electromagnetic microscope meets the equipment operating conditions. “Vibration, noise, temperature control, pressure differentials, electrical equipment magnetic fields and radio frequency noise” are among them.

“We are proud of our strong reputation in the education marketplace and truly enjoy collaborating with our clients in school communities,” said Acentech President Jeffrey Zapfe in a statement. “As consultants, when you create a connection with your clients and understand the why of a project, the process becomes far more meaningful and successful. We are extremely proud of these projects and look forward to seeing these facilities contribute to and inspire the education of future generations of students.”

Completion of the Science Building at Yale University is expected by the end of 2019.

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Q: How did Acentech decide to move into this particular niche? It’s such an obvious problem, and yet it seems like there are few companies that tackle it. What’s the backstory?

Zapfe: Institutions have always had an interest in protecting their stakeholders from construction vibration and noise. Prior to the Internet, monitoring systems were largely historical records of what happened. But with the arrival of the Internet and with the advent of reliable “remote desktop” applications, it became possible to collect, process and communicate data in real time. Our first remote monitoring project started more than 10 years ago. By our current standards it was pretty basic — we essentially logged onto a remote PC that was running a commercial data acquisition system. We could see the data in real time, but we had no alarm capability. That first project, however, showed us the great benefit that monitoring could provide to our clients. Since then our systems have grown in terms of both measurement and communication capability. One of our clients summed up the value of monitoring as “peace of mind.” When she wasn’t getting alarms, she knew everything was okay.

Q:When beginning construction on an occupied campus, how has sound pollution been handled in the past — or has it? What unique strategies does Acentech deploy?

Zapfe: Typically, before remote monitoring technology, a construction noise study would begin with a model to determine what areas, if any, are likely to be impacted. These models take into account the type of equipment to be used as well as topography and building structures (buildings can shield other buildings from sound). Once the potential impacts are understood, mitigation strategies can be employed. These can range from temporary noise walls to additional glazing on windows, to moving sensitive receivers to another location.

Once the construction began, monitors would be installed to measure the noise. But these monitors were only historical records; they did not provide data in real time unless someone was there to observe the output directly. If real-time information was needed, it invariably involved a live person with a sound level meter.

The arrival of computers and modem technology did provide real-time capability, but these systems were cumbersome to use and the data rates were very limited. The high-speed Internet and Wi-Fi technology exploded the possibilities for noise monitoring systems. Increased data rates and web access pages make it possible to transfer large amounts of data and to share it widely.  

Today, Acentech uses a technology called Remote Monitoring where systems are deployed in sensitive facilities near construction sites and stream data in real time over the Internet. These are not traditional vibration monitors that are used to protect buildings from damage — our systems measure vibrations that are much smaller and can affect a sensitive piece of equipment or sensitive activity inside a building. The measured data is extremely important, and provides managers, administrators, researchers and construction personnel with vibration and noise information in real time, enabling them to anticipate problems in critical situations, implement mitigating actions, document problematic events and account for the effects of such events on research.

Q: Vibrations can be disruptive, and in California (where they are often mistaken for earthquakes), how can they be mitigated?

Zapfe: In many cases, there are lower vibration options for construction (vibratory versus impact pile driving, hoe-ramming versus blasting, etc.). But generally, lower vibration methods take more time and are usually more expensive. The balance between project cost and disruption to neighboring adjacencies is an important issue that needs to be carefully considered. Ultimately, however, the construction has to take place and, at some time, someone is likely going to be affected by the vibration and noise. Here, communication is key. If users know when the disruptive activity is going to take place, they can generally work around it. The one thing that people hate is being surprised. Letting people know early on what they can expect from the project and keeping them in the loop during the project can make the experience much more tolerable.

Q: Acentech recently worked with the New England Conservatory — what was the nature of the project?

Zapfe: Preserving the use of rehearsal and performance spaces of a music school less than 10 feet from a large-scale demolition between Northeastern University and the New England Conservatory. The construction of a new 17-story residence hall on the campus of Northeastern University involved knocking down part of the YMCA facility on Huntington Avenue. Since the New England Conservatory is an abutter to the site — at a distance of 18 inches at its closest point — the demolition raised concerns for the conservatory, which houses sensitive spaces including music instruction rooms, recording studios and performance space in Brown Hall, Williams Hall and Jordan Hall.

To help protect performance and student use of the conservatory from airborne and structurally radiated noise intrusions, Acentech worked with the conservatory and the developer to establish construction-related noise and vibration thresholds. Acentech installed real-time monitoring systems, which provide live feedback and alerts to the construction superintendent and conservatory, notifying of a breach in predetermined noise or vibration levels. Acentech placed its monitoring systems at five noise sensor positions on the roof and two vibration sensor positions on the foundation of the conservatory building directly below critical listening and performance spaces. The real-time monitoring systems have allowed construction to continue and the conservatory to operate in a compatible and cooperative manner.

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Listen to the lecture at home, do your homework in class. It may seem counter to what some of us grew up doing, but it has become commonplace for today’s student learning. Traditionally, students learn new information through lecture or direct instruction while in school. In flipped classrooms, students study the lecture at home, and class time is spent discussing, experimenting and exploring those topics in greater depth. Since around 2000, the upside-down or flipped classroom model has seen more acceptance and adaptation, and gained more mainstream media attention. However, that is only part of the story.

Advancements in personal computing have pushed the envelope on not only what students learn, but how. The terms “active learning classroom” and “team-based learning” describe a pedagogy in which students are actively engaged in the learning process. Similar to the flipped model, these approaches involve students working together in class to advance what they learned at home. They are working in teams to solve a problem or developing a solution to an issue by collaborating with the teacher as well as their peers. With or without technology in the classroom, this model has shown to improve learning outcomes.

New Solutions

By adding technology to these models, so-called “TEAL” or “SCALE-UP” solutions have become prevalent in the classroom.

TEAL, developed at MIT in 2004 as Technology Enabled Active Learning (or Technology Enhanced Active Learning), involves a new classroom setup by removing the front lectern, placing the instructor in the middle of the class, and locating a video projector, flat screen displays and white boards around the room’s perimeter. Small groups of students work together and help each other through the curriculum. The technology connection provides immediate access to online resources. In addition, the instructor has the flexibility to refocus individual groups, while allowing others to continue working without interruption.

The Student-Centered Active Learning Environment with Upside-down Pedagogies model, known as SCALE-UP, is another name for the same classroom layout, with an included description on the teaching style.

Unique Classroom Design

There is a great deal of similarity in how these classrooms are laid out. Typically, tables of six to eight students are spread around the room with a teacher station centrally located. Display devices are hung from the walls, usually one per table as space allows. With the cost of flat-panel displays continuing to drop, these seem to be more prevalent than video projectors and projection screens.

The next factor is connection. Students need to be able to connect their device to the display to show work, as well as connect the device to the network. Current estimates indicate that by 2020, each student will have six wireless devices. That proliferation of personal technology requires the school’s wireless infrastructure to provide sufficient coverage and bandwidth.

Once the network bandwidth solution is addressed, connecting student devices to the displays in the classroom is the next critical element to the “technology enhanced” portion of learning.

Students can connect via a wired connection between their device’s (laptop/tablet) video output and the input to the display. This requires that there is a connection plate either under the display or through a floor box under their table. In a SCALE-UP classroom with 12 tables, that can be a lot of floor boxes or poke-through devices, which almost certainly give the structural engineer some pause. That scenario also limits the ability to move tables into different configurations.

The other connection option is to connect the device wirelessly. There are a number of solutions that allow students to connect to the AV system and show content, regardless of the device type. A number of wireless receiver solutions also allow multiple students to connect simultaneously, which is exactly what the TEAL classroom is designed for: Group learning with technology enhancements.

Another important design factor is how interior finishes and background noise levels need to be carefully programmed to account for groups of students working simultaneously. Absorptive finishes to help mitigate noise might be necessary. In addition, wall construction between adjacent active learning classrooms will need to be addressed to limit sound transfer. Finally, HVAC noise within the classroom needs to be quiet enough to allow instructors to be heard by students.

When each of these factors is taken into account, students can collaborate, teachers can interact easily with student groups, technology can run smoothly, and learning can take on a whole new meaning.

David A. Bateman, Jr. is a principal at Boston-headquartered Acentech, a multi-disciplinary acoustics, audiovisual systems design and vibration-consulting firm.

This article was originally published in its entirety in the November/December issue of School Construction News, available now.

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