On Friday 25th April, students on the Architectural Acoustics course went on an excursion to Malmös new Congress, Concert and Hotel Building (KKH) on Universitetsholmen in Västra Hamnen, Sweden.
Associate Professors Cheol-Ho Jeong and Jonas Brunskog, together with 30 students from the Architectural Acoustics course (31240), visited the KKH Malmö construction site, where the new Malmö concert hall – Malmö Live – is under construction. Construction on the site, which started two years ago, is expected to be inaugurated in May 2015.
"“Anders Gade’s presentation beforehand was also informative, especially where he told us how the acoustic parameters had been agreed with both the client and the contractor”."
Mhairi Riddet - Master student, DTU
Each year the students on the Architectural Acoustics course (31240), visit two relevant places of interest; typically a concert hall and a construction site. This year’s excursion to KKH covers both areas. The excursion this year is of interest because it is an important research and educational area within Acoustic Technology and the KKH building project contains examples of relevance for both room acoustics and sound insulation. Anders Gade (Gade-Mortensen Akustik) and Carl Jonsson (Skanska) were also there to help brief the students in the acoustical aspects of the concert hall project and to show the group around the construction site.
Cheol-Ho says ”The students on the course are expected to carry out practical architectural acoustic projects, so this professional example inspires them in terms of how to determine the acoustic goals as well as how to communicate both with the client and with other building engineers”. Jonas Brunskog adds that “it is also important for the students to experience a real building site, which is an organized chaos. On the building site it is also possible to see how acoustic solutions are constructed and built in reality. Examples in this case are double walls and panel absorbers/wall reflectors.”
The variable reverberation time in the concert hall in the KKH building, is between 1.5 s and 2.1 s. meaning basically that different types of classical music can be accommodated in the arena at different times.
Mhairi Riddet, one of the students on the course, tells how she enjoyed the trip to the KKH building and how interesting she found it to see how buildings are put together. “It was good to be able to look at practical examples of how rooms are acoustically isolated from each other and also to see an auditorium under construction. It helps to appreciate how much time and planning has to go into these projects to make sure that they are realized correctly”.
