Museum Acoustics Singapore:

Museums have evolved from the early 90’s boom to today’s interactive media experiences with the modern advancements that technology brings to the users experience. This has led to an increase in audio visual features such as auditoriums, art installations, replica environments, narratives, sound effects and virtual reality.

This then paves the way for the need for serious Acoustic consideration in projects; be that with refurbishment works on existing museums or the creation of brand new spaces. Acoustics has become without a doubt an integral part of any museum in todays world.

In the first instance Museums will require amplified sound through speakers that are used to communicate information. This can be in a straight-forward installation or complex orbital speakers to create surround sound and augmented reality experiences.

For Example: At the York Viking Museum in the UK vast amounts of speakers are used in the attraction ride that is at the heart of the museum. The museum recreates an are of York in Viking times and speakers are installed at all of the interactive points of interest. Such individual speakers are installed at the location of the pigs, individual people, other animals, background noise and so on. This then give the user the feeling that sounds are emitted from the actual source where they would be in reality which creates an almost flawless hearing experience.

Another requirement of museums is to remove echo and reverberation to make the spaces quitter, more friendly and improve the acoustics so that short animation screens, films or infographics can be clear and understood. This requires complex acoustic treatments usually installed in the ceiling and on some walls to correct what otherwise would be a massive problem.

Lastly, we have the auditoriums which require the same level of treatment as any other auditorium build. However, the main difference is that in Museums some of the auditorium spaces are open for users to walk in and out, this then requires acoustic absorption and refraction to contain sound in these spaces, which complicates matters.