Acoustical Comfort Evaluation in Enclosed Public Spaces with a Central Atrium:A Case Study in CEPA Shopping Mall, Ankara

摘要

Physical comfort requirements of users should be considered and studied in detail whendesigning and planning public spaces. These requirements can be exemplified as thermal,visual, and acoustic comfort. There are many studies assessing these physical requirementsin the literature regarding public spaces, atriums and acoustical comfort evaluation.However, there is not enough research, colleting the acoustical parameters and the comfortlevel of users in enclosed public spaces, which are in direct relation with a central atrium.The subjective auditory perception needs to be evaluated parallel with the objectiveacoustical indices of the space. CEPA Shopping Mall with an atrium and a glass domeceiling, in the capital city of Turkey, Ankara is chosen for the case. The aim of this study isto understand whether the measured acoustical parameters correlate with the users’subjective acoustical comfort evaluation. The research methods are computer simulationsand questionnaires. SPL, RT, EDT, and STI values are obtained by in-dept simulationanalysis. Questionnaires are used for understanding the auditory perception and thecomfort level of the users. The results show that the present architectural organization andthe acoustical conditions lead to high noise annoyance. The most dominant soundperceived by the users is human voice. The reverberation occurred in the space is noted asthe main factor that lowers the acoustical comfort and speech intelligibility SI. As there is alow level of attenuation, the space is found to be inappropriate for conversation.