PROJECT HISTORY
CULTURAL LIFE CENTER
Roberts Wesleyan College
Rochester, New York

Architects: SWBR Architects, P.C.

Owner:: Roberts Wesleyan College

The Cultural Life Center includes the 1000-seat Andrews B. Hale Auditorium and the Robert Shewan Recital Hall. The following text is from the Cultural Life Center's program for the premier season:

ACOUSTICAL DESIGN

The Roberts Cultural Life Center has been designed with optimal acoustics in mind to meet unique needs. The resulting acoustical environments are a collaboration among the noted acoustical consulting firm of Ostergaard Acoustical Associates, SWBR Architects, Babinsky Klein Engineering, and theater consultants, Robert Davis, Inc. Although Ostergaard Acoustical Associates, is located in West Orange, New Jersey, their project manager for the Roberts Cultural Life Center is R. Kring Herbert, who grew up in Rochester.

AN AUDITORIUM HALL TAILORED TO THE WORLD OF MUSIC
The college's 1000-seat auditorium features adjustable components designed to provide the best acoustics for Roberts' well-known music program, as well as for theatrical programs and events for the spoken word. Acoustical features of the hall include:

Classic shoebox shape, selected for the same excellent acoustics exhibited by many of the world's great concert halls such as Boston's Symphony Hall.
Performance area equipped with a custom designed concert enclosure that retracts to expose a theatrical stagehouse. The enclosure surfaces are oriented to provide the performers with good hearing for ensemble playing and to project sound into the audience. The surfaces also provide diffusion for an improved blend of sound.

An acoustical canopy forward of the stage designed to reflect performance sound into the audience for improved intelligibility, provide sound diffusion to eliminate acoustical "glare," and to adjust the balance of early-to-late reflections between speech and music performances through shutters that can open and close portions of the canopy.

Side wall panels are designed to provide lateral reflects that increase the width of the sound stage.

A computer-designed central loudspeaker cluster that directs sound into the audience areas for less apparent reverberation for clear voice reinforcement.

Rear wall acoustical draperies for adjustment of the reverberation characteristic and to control echo.

A RECITAL HALL THAT MIRRORS THE AUDITORIUM
The recital hall is designed parallel with the auditorium to provide excellent natural acoustics for both choral and instrumental classes, rehearsals, and intimate musical performances.

The large volume of this hall (106,000 cubic feet) facilitates balanced sound, without excessive loudness, as well as appropriate reverberation.
An overhead canopy provides early sound reflections to allow sections of the performing group to better hear each other.

The harsh sound of acoustical glare is controlled by vertical sound diffusing elements on the overhead canopy and wall diffusion provided by a pattern of sound absorbent panels and exposed exterior wall surfaces.

Fabric-wrapped acoustical panels on the exterior wall also control reverberation.

Two exterior walls pitch inward to eliminate flutter echo and reflect sound into the performance/audience areas.

HVAC NOISE CONTROL: PLANNED FROM THE BEGINNING
Acoustical aspects of the air handling systems for both the auditorium and recital hall have been planned from the start to provide critically needed low mechanical noise levels so as not to mask the sounds of the performance. The auditorium has been designed for RC-20, a room criterion value of 20, and the recital hall, RC-25. To achieve these goals, each element of the air handling system was acoustically modeled via computer in octave frequency bands to identify required noise control features.
Mechanical equipment was selected to be quiet and remotely located. Based on each space's room criterion, air ducts were sized and acoustically lined to attenuate fan noise and not cause turbulence noise.