Ceiling Design - the Sound of Silence

This mock-up shows how the ceiling assembly will go together. Black roofing paper as a background with painted black rails fastened on top. The sound absorbing material will be fixed between the rails and then covered with the wooden planking spaced at 1” apart.

When we made the decision to have a cement floor, one of the first concerns was the sound quality of the room. At about 2500 square feet, the dining hall is designed primarily for our students to gather and enjoy their daily meals together with our staff. On average, there will be 40 - 60 people eating at tables, and with special events it can be as much as almost 100 people. It was important that we didn’t have a giant echo chamber amplifying all those sounds of laughter, chattering and commraderie. Equally important was retaining the desired style of wood paneling throughout the space.

After consulting with an acoustic engineer, our architect developed a novel solution of covering the ceiling with sound dampening material and then installing the overlaying wood board with regular gaps of 1 inch. The gaps allow sound waves to be absorbed between the boards and thus reducing the echo effect which is what creates a noisier space.

The result is a ceiling that looks the way we want, but has a strong quality of sound absorption. An added bonus is a ceiling texture that is differentiated in a nice way from the wall textures.

In this partially finished bay, the 1 inch gaps will add up to the equivelant of hanging a sound-absorbing pane that would be 2 feet by 4 feet in size!