What are the key details and acoustic challenges of this building project?
- Client: Shedkm
- Completion Year: 2020
- Acoustic Plant & Noise Impact Assessment
- Location: New Islington, Manchester
Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) constructions, whilst being good for the environment (compared to more traditional concrete builds), are challenging acoustically as the sound insulation of a structure dependent on the amount of mass present and the density of the material. CLT is very low density, especially compared to concrete.
Additionally, a key part of the architectural design was to keep the wooden ceilings and walls exposed within rooms. This meant that there was no suspended ceiling to improve the sound insulation of the floor. Accordingly, a robust floating floor system needed to be designed to add the necessary mass and acoustic separation to achieve the Building Regulations requirements for separating floors between flats and allow for the exposed structural slab to act as the ceiling in all flats.
The design of the separating walls needed to be carefully considered to achieve the requirements of the building regulations and to close off potential paths for flanking noise. Finally, the connection between the wall slab and the floor slab was carefully considered and a resilient strip added to prevent flanking noise undermining the robust floating floor system. Due to the size of the building, being a tower block, careful consideration as to the material utilised for the resilient strip was required to ensure that the weight of the building did not crush it and compromise the acoustics. As a key part of the design team, Syntegra ensured that acoustics was kept at the forefront of people’s thoughts during the detailed design and construction of the towerblock.
The building is currently under construction and we conduct regular site visits to ensure that all acoustic elements are installed correctly.
Architects: https://www.shedkm.co.uk
