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Ralph T Muehleisen Ph.D., P.E., LEED AP BD+C, INCE Board Certified, FASA Principal Building Scientist Argonne National Lab
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Why Do We Need Green Buildings? To understand the Acoustics of Green Buildings, we also have to understand what Green buildings are and understand how they are different than conventional buildings. But, before we discuss what they are, lets take a minute to discuss why people want to make buildings more green to begin with
Ralph T. Muehleisen - Acoustics of Green Buildings
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Rise in CO2 Emissions and Global Warming The scientific community agrees that the earth is warming from man made CO2 emissions. Much of that is from buildings
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#1: Buildings
#2: Industry
#3: Transportation
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2444 Of 6576
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39.36 Of 94.58
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Why Do We Need Green Buildings? Buildings account for a LOT of resource use and greenhouse gas emission. In the US buildings account for:
13% of
Potable Water Use
37% of
Greenhouse Gas
41% of
Primary Energy Use
72% of
Electricity Consumption
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How Do We Know If A Building Is Green? One way in which buildings are determined to be Green or not is through Green building rating systems
Energy Star (from US EPA and DOE) LEED (from US Green Building Council) Green Globes (from Green Building Initiative) ASHRAE 189 (standard from ASHRAE) BREEAM (from UK) Green Star (from Green Building Council Australia)
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Introduction to LEED LEED is the predominate Green Building Rating system in the US so lets explain it in a bit more detail. Most of the other rating systems are fairly similar, it tends to be details that are different. Those of you who were familiar with LEED and maybe even are a LEED Accredited Professional (LEED AP) but have not kept up to date might find something new in here
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What is LEED? Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a system for rating Green Buildings Buildings are Certified as LEED when they have a high enough rating.
There are multiple levels of certification
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LEED Rating Systems There are different LEED Rating systems for different types of buildings
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Who Creates LEED Rating Systems? LEED is a consensus based rating system that is organized by the US Green Building Council, a non-profit organization with members from all of the building industry including members from the design, construction, and owner/developer industries.
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LEED Certified: 40-49 points LEED Silver: 50-59 points LEED Gold: 60-79 points LEED Platinum: > 80 points
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LEED Prerequisites and Points To get any certification, a building must meet all the prerequisites of the rating system and achieve at least 40 points Prerequisites are minimum building standards and they basically ensure that the building is not bad
The prerequisites are often found as part of the local building code so meeting them is already a requirement to build
Points are awarded for enhanced performance in many areas including construction, material use, energy use, and indoor environmental quality.
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What Things Go Into a LEED Rating? LEED prereqs and points are broken down into 5 main areas with differing levels of importance Additional areas for points are design innovation and regional priority
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Overview of the LEED 2009 NC Rating System The following slides show the categories, list the prerequisites and available design points for one rating system, LEED 2009 for New Construction and Major Renovation (LEED NC 2009) With Innovation and Design and Regional Priority credits there are up to 110 points available.
There are only 100 points available in the main rating system This is going to stay fixed in future updates, although the prereqs and details of the available points may change
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1 5 1 6 1 3 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
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Credit 2 Credit 3
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Storage and Collection of Recyclables Building ReuseMaintain Existing Walls, Floors, and Roof Reuse 55% Reuse 95% Building ReuseMaintain 50% of Interior Non-Structural Elements Construction Waste Management 50% Recycled or Salvaged 75% Recycled or Salvaged
to 3
to 2
Credit 3
to 2
Recycled Content 20% of Content Regional Materials 20% of Materials Rapidly Renewable Materials Certified Wood
to 2 to 2
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Minimum Indoor Air Quality Performance Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) Control Outdoor Air Delivery Monitoring Increased Ventilation Construction IAQ Management PlanDuring Construction Construction IAQ Management PlanBefore Occupancy Low-Emitting MaterialsAdhesives and Sealants Low-Emitting MaterialsPaints and Coatings Low-Emitting MaterialsFlooring Systems Low-Emitting MaterialsComposite Wood and Agrifiber Products Indoor Chemical and Pollutant Source Control Controllability of SystemsLighting Controllability of SystemsThermal Comfort Thermal ComfortDesign Thermal ComfortVerification Daylight and ViewsDaylight Daylight and ViewsViews
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
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Regional Priority Credits Credit Credit Credit Credit 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Regional Priority: Regional Priority: Regional Priority: Regional Priority:
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Requirements:
This explains what has to be done
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LEED Checklist
Excel spreadsheet that lists the prereq and points useful for double checking your design, Free download from USGBC
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USGBC. 2011. LEED 2009 For New Construction and Major Renovations. http://www.usgbc.org/ShowFile.aspx?DocumentID=8868.
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What is Architectural Acoustics Architectural acoustics is the study of sound in buildings and the design of buildings for proper acoustics including
Control of sound transmission throughout building Maintaining conditions for good speech intelligibility Maintaining sound isolation for speech privacy Enhancing the acoustic signal in performance spaces
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Reverberation
Reverberation is the bouncing sound in a room from the room surfaces
We characterize by the Reverberation Time, RT, the amount of time it takes the sound energy to decay from absorption by 60 dB
The shorter the reverberation time, the less reverberation and the easier it is to understand speech.
Most rooms should have reverberation times well under 1 second to be good for speech
Sound Isolation Sound isolation is the ability to block sound transmission from one area to another Sound isolation capability depends upon the mass and construction details of a partition or fenestration
We often characterize sound isolation by a single number called the sound transmission class or STC
The higher STC, the better the isolator Measured with ASTM Standards
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Speech Intelligibility
Speech Intelligibility is the ability to hear and understand a conversation
The higher the speech intelligibility, the more a conversation is understood
Speech intelligibility is related to the sound power and directivity of the speaker, the background noise level at the listener, the attenuation between speaker
Sentence understanding of 90-95% is usually desired Speech Intelligibility is objectively measured with the Speech Intelligibility Index ( ANSI S3.5) or the Speech Transmission Index (IEC 60268-16)
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Speech Privacy
Speech Privacy is the inability to understand someone else's speech
Its basically the opposite of speech intelligibility This is important for legal and security issues as well as annoyance
Like Speech Intelligibility, Speech Privacy is related to sound power, background noise level, attenuation, and listener language skills
Speech privacy is measured by the Privacy Index (ASTM 1130) in open offices and the Speech Privacy Class (ASTM 2638) in closed offices Good Speech Privacy has a PI > 95% or SPC > 80
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Office Acoustics
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How Do Buildings Affect Occupants? Poor building designs can cause or exacerbate:
hidden sick days higher absenteeism high stress levels high blood pressure respiratory ailments allergies, asthma
These all result in reduced productivity and increased health insurance costs
Note: A 1% decrease in productivity (about 5 minutes per day) equals $600-700 per employee per year!
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Where Does Acoustics Fit In? Acoustics is an important part of employee comfort and well-being it is a significant portion of Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) Poor acoustics will
Inhibit Communication Create Vocal Strain Limit Attention Span
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The most popular LEED rating systems (NC and EB/OM) have no acoustics whatsoever (yet)
As a result, design teams have no incentive (from the rating system) to design for good acoustics or even consider them within the design phase
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Look at surveys of occupants to see if they find that the indoor environmental quality is improved
We call these surveys of the occupants after they have used the building, Post Occupancy Evaluation (POE) surveys
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-0.5 LEED/Green
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-0.2
0.2
All Buildings
0.4
New Non-Green
Acoustics is the only category where the performance is worse in new green buildings compared to nongreen buildings and it is the category with the lowest ratings in all buildings. In short green buildings have worse acoustics
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Acoustics Complaints
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Causes of Poor Green Building Acoustics Let us examine some of the causes of poor acoustics: Natural Ventilation Daylighting Radiant Heating and Cooling Exposed Thermal Mass Lightweight Steel Frames
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Natural Ventilation Natural ventilation uses indoor/outdoor pressure differences to drive air flow through holes in walls and open windows
Reduces the energy use to move air in ducts Can provide higher quality air to occupants
The result of all this is: Reduced indoor/outdoor sound isolation Reduced interior sound isolation More acoustically reflective surfaces on room walls and ceilings Less surface area available for sound absorptive treatments
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Radiant Heating/Cooling
Radiant Heating and Cooling is being used more for improved energy efficiency and improved thermal comfort. This results in: More exposed metal and concrete which are sound reflective surfaces This results in higher reverberant sound levels and high reflection of direct sound
Increased background noise in general from high reverberation Decreased speech privacy from direct reflections
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Use of Sustainable Materials Green buildings tend to use more sustainably farmed wood, metal (recycled and recyclable), stone, and concrete than conventional buildings. This means Reduced use of acoustic ceiling tile Reduced use of acoustic absorptive panels Reduced use of carpeting
Note: acoustic tiles, panels, and carpeting all are being made in more sustainable ways by some firms so the trend away from them might be changing.
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Lightweight Steel Frame Design If thermal mass systems are not used, buildings are often being designed with lighter weight, welded steel frames and much thinner walls and floors. This results in
Reduced Airborne Sound Isolation Reduced damping of structure borne sound Increased coupling of vibration between structural members Decreased isolation to impact and vibration excitation.
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Conflicts with Natural Ventilation and Daylight There is no simple way to provide sound isolation if partitions need to be reduced or eliminated for natural ventilation and daylighting
Sound masking, the generation of background noise to cover up other noise, can help provide cubicle-to-cubicle sound isolation but only with an increase in the overall noise level
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Conflicts with Natural Ventilation and Daylight There are no magic bullets to provide good sound isolation with large amounts of glass.
High sound isolation windows are available, but are expensive and their sound isolation is still worse than most opaque wall constructions Clear and translucent sound absorbing materials are available but are still extremely expensive
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Synergies
Careful construction to avoid thermal bridging and air infiltration usually results in improved outdoor-indoor sound isolation Use of high mass construction (concrete, filled CMU) in walls and floors can provide better sound isolation opportunities
Must be careful to install high acoustic absorbing materials where they are acceptable to ensure reverberation is controlled
Reduced use of forced air HVAC mean less HVAC generated noise and vibration
May need to install noise masking systems to provide speech privacy
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Opportunities The use of coordinated and integrated design teams can take advantage of synergies and try to minimize conflicts early in design.
Owners, architects, and building systems designers frequently meet together in design charrettes early in the design phase
The old school methods with discipline separated design must be abandoned in green buildings to ensure energy use is minimized
For this to be able to provide improved acoustics someone on the design team needs to have training in acoustics!
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Opportunities Post-occupancy evaluations can be used to find and document acoustic complaints of workers even if upper management is not aware of problems
Market for sustainable acoustic products
Make traditional acoustic treatments more sustainable Transparent Acoustic Absorbers
Available but very high cost now
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Designer Needs Need to get some acoustics into the criteria for green building rating systems
This is slowly starting to happen, in part because of advocacy of ASA members like Dan Bruck, Alexis Kurtz, Charles Salter, Dave Lubman, David Sykes, Brandon Tinianov, and others
Need to educate architects and engineers on the need to consider acoustics in the design, even if the rating system does not
Make them aware of the implications of poor acoustics (unhappy and unproductive applicants) Make them understand that some things cannot always be fixed afterward
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Summary Green Buildings usually have worse acoustical performance than conventional because:
Rating systems do not incentivize good acoustics. We need to change that Green building designs tend to remove sound absorbing materials for daylighting, radiative heating and cooling, and exposed thermal mass Green building designs tend to reduce isolating construction for daylighting and natural ventilation.
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Summary Green buildings can provide some good opportunities for improved acoustic performance through:
Coordinated, integrated design teams High mass construction provides opportunity for improved sound isolation Green Roofs provide better sound isolation New markets for sustainable acoustical materials
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