Evaluation of acoustic quality in wooden buildings

It has often been shown that the correlation between standardized evaluation methods and human perception of acoustic quality in wooden buildings can be poor. Within the European research project AcuWood, the acoustic quality of wooden buildings is investigated. The aim of the reported study is twofold. On the one hand it is intended to gain insight into the acoustic satisfaction of inhabitants of wooden buildings depending on building and construction type. On the other hand it is intended to derive objective acoustic descriptors which better correlate with subjective human perception and which are capable to provide a classification of the acoustic quality of wooden buildings. A special focus is put upon impact noise of different technical and human sources. To achieve this, a questionnaire-based field study in Germany and Switzerland as well as laboratory listening tests were conducted which reconsidered different building and construction types. Besides impact noise other acoustic qualities and additional building properties were addressed in the field survey. The laboratory listening tests partly included recordings from buildings that were included in the questionnaire-based field study. Therefore it is possible to compare the long-term acoustic satisfaction of inhabitants with the short-term subjective impression during the laboratory listening tests.