dBx Acoustics worked with HPA Architecture on the acoustic design of the Green Pastures Pentecostal Church in Ballymena, County Antrim in 2013 until its opening in 2019. The building contains a 4000 seater auditorium and has significant youth and educational facilities, as well as social space including classrooms, cafes, a sports hall and gym, and smaller auditoria and recording and broadcast studios.
As the scheme design approached the tender stage, we advised on reverberation time throughout, as well as sound insulation between spaces. There was a need for significant sound insulation between the auditorium and adjacent spaces which were in use at the same time – no small feat given the Client’s requirement to run the front of house PA at 112 dBA! We worked with the mechanical services consultant to control services noise both inside and outside the building.
We worked closely with the Local Authority to help them draft appropriate planning conditions for noise emissions from the site in order to ensure there was no adverse impact on nearby residents – or on the housing proposed as part of the wider masterplan in future. Our noise impact assessment was used to set noise emission limits against both BS 4142:2014 and BS 8233:2014, and has helped to define the sound insulation specification for the Auditorium roof and facades.
