Ravenscliffe High School

Project Brief

PDA Ltd was commissioned to undertake the acoustic design of a new modular school building providing additional teaching spaces for Special Educational Need (SEN) students. The new building was to achieve all building regulation requirements as set out in BB93: acoustic design of schools – performance standards and BREEAM Hea 05 credits.

Figure 1A: Ravenscliffe new SEN building completed

Acoustic Challenges

As the teaching spaces were to cater for SEN students the project inherently required a more stringent set of acoustic requirements to be achieved in accordance with BB93 for building regulations. These requirements included enhanced levels of sound insulation between teaching spaces, lower reverberation times (RT’s) and lower internal ambient noise levels (IANL’s) relative to none-SEN school buildings. In addition to this as the construction for the project was modular in design some aspects of the design were in part predetermined such as the general light-weight construction of the building and that typically modular constructions if left un-treated create gaps underneath or above separating floors that can reduce the overall sound insulation achieved.
Working with the developer we were able to provide several lightweight designs suitable to achieve the requirements of BB93. Particular attention was also paid to the junction details which if left untreated would have left significant air paths for sound to travel under and around the main separating partition and reduce the overall level of sound insulation achieved.
Additional acoustic absorption was required in the teaching spaces to achieve the enhanced RT requirements for SEN students as detailed in BB93. The enhanced RT requirements are set to improve speech communication and improve the overall acoustic environment for SEN students who may be more sensitive to a less favourable teaching environment. Working with the developer we helped identify suitable acoustic treatments for the ceiling to achieve requirements.
A particularly low ambient noise level is set by BB93 for SEN teaching spaces. A noise survey was conducted at the start of the project and identified that the existing external environment was generally ‘quiet’ and an enhanced building envelope design was not required. However, as the teaching spaces were to include for mechanical services these required additional measures to achieve the internal ambient noise level criteria. Based on the proposed HRU’s we provided acoustic specifications for the silencers to the HRU’s and also identified a ceiling tile with a suitable mass to control noise breakout from the units casing.

Figure 1B: Ravenscliffe SEN block, Finished Classroom

The Building in Use

From initial engagement and project design in January 2021, the building was completely operational in February 2022.

Figure 1C: Ravenscliffe new SEN building completed