Restaurants have a sound opportunity

We are often asked to help find ways to improve acoustics and reduce crowd noise in restaurants, but when it comes to implementing them the disruption can be hard for an operator to accommodate. Even simple changes to ceiling finishes can mean a day or more of lost dining room revenue, in a business already on thin margins typical for NYC and other expensive places.

During COVID, we noticed that the restaurants that were fortunate enough to be breaking even with delivery and outdoor dining found themselves with once-busy dining rooms that were largely going unused. It’s a perfect opportunity to make what might have otherwise been disruptive changes to an interior, in anticipation of packed crowds returning once again. Carefully analyzed and thoughtfully implemented, good restaurant acoustics can allow diners to converse in a lively environment, without subjecting them to either an ear-splitting racket or an overly-deadened hush.

Locking down vibration

A recent article in Science highlights the opportunity presented by the last several months of lockdown: an unprecedented lull in anthropogenic seismic noise (or, “people stopped shaking so much”). Seismologists and researchers have been able to study groundborne vibration and seismic activity that would otherwise have been lost in the noise, which has been reduced by as much as 50% with so many staying home. On the flip side, this correlation also motivates novel ways of tracking human mobility by monitoring this noise floor—simply putting one’s ear to the ground.

Acoustics center stage

As acoustical consultants, we’re often forced to work around extraneous noise. Especially in New York, trying to measure something that is quiet can be frustrating when it’s surrounded by things that are loud. While this tends to be unavoidable here, the New York Times features this piece on an acoustic task that was too important for interference: the digital cataloging of a Stradivarius collection in Cremona, Italy.

By building a model of samples and tones from each instrument, the project hopes to preserve their sound indefinitely even after the instruments degrade. But because the sounds are too subtle to withstand any extraneous noise, city activity and traffic around the Museo del Violino is completely suspended during recording, an unprecedented precaution only possible since the Stradivarius is the signature sound of Cremona. That level of control would be nice for our own work, but city noise is the signature sound of New York!

Sonic thump

NASA has awarded the contract to build its first piloted X-Plane in decades, with the mission to advance supersonic flight over populated areas. While the historic Concorde broke the sound barrier over the ocean, it was restricted to subsonic speeds over land due to the disruptive and objectionable sonic boom produced by supersonic flight. In the new Low Boom Flight Demonstrator design, the contours of the airframe and management of the flight profile will help to minimize and distribute the shocks over a wide area, producing a series of muffled thumps instead of the two sudden, loud cracks that occur when the leading and trailing sonic shocks coalesce in existing designs.

The research program is also advancing the analysis and prediction of supersonic noise propagation through the atmosphere, and how those of us on the ground perceive the new muffled signature—since public acceptance is the ultimate hurdle to commercialization.  New York to LA in two hours never sounded so good!

STEM Blossoms

It has been a great year for the Hajjar STEM Center at Dwight-Englewood School in New Jersey, a project we recently completed with Gensler—it has been featured in Fast Company, CNNArchitect Magazine, and Business Insider, and was just announced as a 2016 Award of Merit winner by the AIA’s Committee on Architecture for Education (CAE).  The building’s open and flexible learning environment encourages collaboration and experimentation, with acoustical treatments targeting clear communication and sound separation.

Spotify spotted

Spotify’s 54,000 square foot expansion to their Flatiron office was recently featured in Contract Magazine. Continuing our long collaboration with Spotify and TPG Architecture, we strove to meet the client’s acoustical performance needs within the highly-customized, uniquely-curated aesthetic design. Filled with one-of-a-kind art and furniture and avoiding the typical “design tropes of startups and tech firms”, the open squad-based workspace also includes a cafe, lounge, library, wellness rooms, and a fabrication workshop.