Photos courtesy G&S Acoustics
By Herb Golterman
Today’s environmental graphic design (EGD) professionals, interior designers and architects are all exploring creative, inspiring ways to use ordinary acoustic panel surfaces in a visually striking fashion. They are transforming these elements—which are necessary for sound control—into a new medium for bold, impactful graphics, wayfinding cues and branding.
Traditionally, acoustical treatments are simple fabric-covered panels, installed in areas within a building that are prone to noise, to help keep sound levels down. Over the past five years, however, growing numbers of designers have begun to reconsider acoustic panels as palettes for bright environmental graphics. Ceiling-suspended baffles and clouds are now being reconfigured into creative shapes and digitally printed with fresh images, along with further consideration as to how they should be illuminated.
It is becoming more common for ceiling-suspended baffles and clouds to feature digitally printed images.
Digitally printed acoustic panels can be arranged as a series to build a larger mural.
As a result, acoustic control is merging more closely with esthetic design, adding to the visual appearance of indoor spaces, including lobbies, gymnasiums, school classrooms, theatres and church spaces. With the creative use of acoustic panels and wide-format printing, valuable wall space has been opened up for the purpose of EGD, allowing function and appearance of each specific area to be more deeply integrated.
This is a new opportunity to transform elements of interior design so they clearly communicate the purpose, missions or spirit of an organization. Panels may be marked with corporate logos, signage, directions, promotional branding and other types of messages to leave a lasting impression on passersby.
And from the client’s standpoint, this is also a good business decision, as the printing of promotional images onto building surfaces means marketing and architectural expenses can be combined in the same budget to help save money.
A clear picture
Acoustical panels customized with graphics can be created through either dye sublimation or a direct-to-fabric digital inkjet printing process. As with other wide-format graphics, designers can select digital artwork or high-resolution photography, then either apply them to an individual panel or arrange them across a series of panels to build larger murals.
To create sufficiently sharp graphics, the images to be printed should be no less than 150 dots per inch (dpi) in resolution. File types may include Adobe Illustrator (.ai), Photoshop (.ps) and Portable Document Format (.pdf).
Designers should plan extra ‘wrap’ space, approximately 1.5 times the panel thickness, on all sides of the graphic. This will allow for adequate fabric coverage along the sides of the panel, resulting in a smooth, clean appearance.
Campus High School uses custom-cut panels for sound control in its theatre and to create visual contrast with the walls and seats.
The finished product(s) can then be mounted directly to a ceiling or wall or hung as baffles or clouds.
Sizing up shapes
Some EGD professionals are surprised to learn acoustic control is defined by the square footage of the material used to control noise in a given space, rather than by where the panels or baffles are installed. Since location may not affect sound performance, there is a lot of freedom for specifying the sizes and shapes of the acoustic elements.
Hence, customized acoustic panel shapes and sizes are becoming a popular way to emphasize branding and corporate identity within a room. Most standard panel cores and sizes can be custom-cut, printed and then mounted or hung.
Early learners
Schools have been among the leading ‘early adopters’ of acoustic materials for creative applications. Campus High School in Witchita, Kan., for example, uses custom-cut panels for sound control in its theatre, with a curved shape that contrasts with the black walls and seats.
In the multipurpose room at A.D. Stowell Elementary School in Union, Mo., custom-shaped panels hanging from the ceiling depict an outdoor sky motif, including clouds, stars and the moon. They were installed for the purpose of sound control, but also add a kid-friendly architectural esthetic, providing an element of surprise for incoming students when they first look up.
The Missouri Botanical Gardens display ceiling-suspended panels with large flower graphics, which both enhance visual beauty and reduce noise.
The panels were designed by Martin E. Meyer, an architect with the firm Architechnics in Quincy, Ill. Given budgets for school-related projects are limited, especially in rural areas like Union, he says he laid out the star and moon shapes carefully, so as to keep acoustic materials to a minimum, while still attaining the required level of sound control.
Equally fittingly, for a music classroom at O’Fallon High School in nearby O’Fallon, Ill., architects used custom-cut panels to create a giant piano keyboard along the back wall. The esthetic was well in keeping with hosting band practices.
Suggesting even older students can get their inspiration ‘from above,’ the designers of the University of British Columbia’s (UBC’s) Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences wanted to make sure upward gazes would be rewarded. Representing a joint venture between Montreal-based Saucier + Perrotte Architectes and Vancouver- and Victoria-based Hughes Condon Marler Architects, they designed curved, acoustically sound ceilings for the faculty’s lecture halls.
They also worked with BC Ceiling Systems in Richmond, B.C., to achieve a grid pattern for installation, so they could accommodate flat acoustic panels along the curvature of the bulkhead ceilings. These custom-cut acoustic panels, with a micro-bevelled edge, were printed with colours that were chosen both to represent nature and to align with the school’s overall colour scheme.
For the lecture halls’ walls, they specified panels custom-cut in parallelogram shapes that would subtly draw students’ eyes to the front of each hall.
In Jackson, Mo., a new 901-m2 (9,700-sf) transitional space was recently constructed to connect two existing buildings comprising Jackson High School. This space now includes the school’s cafeteria and a multipurpose common room, both of which are hubs for many noisy students at the same time. Interior designers at Warner Nease Bost Architects in Kansas City, Mo., decided to use both custom-shaped and digitally printed acoustic treatments to address volume control in the new space.
At the Saint Louis Zoo’s Lakeside Café, colourful panels along the perimeter of the ceiling depict trees and the sky.
They printed a yearbook-style collage of student photos onto acoustic baffles and hung them from the ceiling. Customized panels were also mounted on the walls, featuring Jackson High’s school colours, red and black, in the shape of a large ‘J.’
“The kids love it,” says Vince Powell, the school’s principal. “It personalizes our new space in a way we never imagined. As soon as you walk in the doors, you know you are at Jackson High.”
Again, the design team first calculated the square footage of acoustic panelling that would be needed to keep noise to a minimum. Then the architects were free to use custom shapes, as long as the math worked out and there was sufficient coverage.
Second nature
Recreational tourist destinations have also come to represent an effective market for customized acoustic panels, as noise levels tend to rise during their busy seasons.
For the Saint Louis Zoo’s busy Lakeside Café in St. Louis, Mo., architects incorporated wildlife and nature themes into the acoustic panelling. The perimeter of the café’s ceiling is lined with colourful panels, upon which photographic-quality images of trees and the sky have been printed, creating a sort of ‘halo’ around the zoo visitors dining there.
Elsewhere in the same city, the Missouri Botanical Gardens showcase ceiling-suspended panels with large printed images of various flowers, to represent botanical life. The flower graphics on these acoustical baffles both enhance visual beauty and reduce noise in a space that is often busy with cocktail parties and other events.
O’Fallon High School’s music room uses acoustic panels to depict, fittingly, a giant keyboard along one wall.
Interior designers printed a yearbook-style collage of student photos on acoustic baffles to help personalize a new multipurpose space at Jackson High School.
Function meets form
Ongoing advances in digital printing and cutting technologies have helped today’s designers successfully challenge the traditional use of acoustic panels as simply utilitarian elements of building projects. The capability to blend essential noise-reducing elements of architecture with optional esthetic backdrops means the EGD community has unlimited choices in design and style for a new palette, where function can meet form in entirely new ways.
Herb Golterman is president of Golterman & Sabo (G&S) Acoustics, which manufactures acoustical, tackable and sound-diffusing wall and ceiling products for worldwide markets. For more information, contact him via e-mail at herbg@golterman.com and visit www.golterman.com.
