Improvement and Variation of Acoustic Performance in Glass-faced Courtyard in Buildings

The Honam Climate Change Experience Center has recently been opened to publicize and experience the phenomenon of global warming and diverse types of environmental issues that are caused by climate changes. However, the finishing materials in the court yard within the building are reflexive ones, such as glass or wood, cause an acoustic defect of excessive reverberation within the court yard. So the need to improve acoustic performance has been suggested constantly since the initial stage of its opening. From this perspective, this study aimed to measure acoustic performance through field experiment in the glass-faced court yard, identify acoustic defects, and use acoustic simulation to suggest five plans for improving acoustic performance. On the basis of the fifth plan expected to secure the optimal acoustic performance, the inner side of the court yard was remodeled to determine the variation and improvement in acoustic performance after the improvement of the glass-faced court yard. When the finished materials and others were changed to improve absorbing power and room constant at the stage of remodeling, acoustic performance suitable for "multipurpose halls" was obtained with the improvement of SPL(A) from 82.4 dB(A) to 76.4 dB(A), SPL500Hz from 72.3 dB to 61.1 dB, RT500Hz from 4.27 sec to 1.2 sec, D50,500Hz from 24.3% to 55.8%, C80,500Hz from -3.4 dB to 3.8 dB, and RASTI from 39.2% (“Poor”) to 61.3% ("Good"). Therefore, the glass-faced court yard, which had required urgent improvement due to acoustic defects, had acoustic performance improved for a multipurpose space that enables diverse types of performance, events, gatherings, and lectures.