At some point in their life, everyone has been at the mercy of terrible acoustics. This is not to say that everyone has been to hundreds of concerts in their lifetimes, in numerous different venues and compared them against different orchestras playing the same piece of music. While acoustics are arguably more important in performance venues, it is in our attendance as the audience members of daily meetings, lectures, restaurants, and cinemas, that people most commonly find themselves deciphering missed words and turning on subtitles. Once you are aware of an obvious flaw in acoustic quality, it is hard for it to go unnoticed, and it then becomes easy to try and place blame on the architect for this. However, it is likely that the acoustic fault simply results from the architect not being aware of acoustic faults to begin with. Acoustic comfort, privacy, and isolation become increasingly critical issues as the population increases and the demand for architectural spaces that can accommodate large numbers of people increases. So, in the same way that architects learnt to incorporate natural light or thermal comfort over time, why not acoustics?

However, this is not such a simple question; there are additional complications in comparing acoustics with other engineering disciplines. Interestingly, it is not only because acoustics involves mathematics - arguably, structural design and geometry are much more mathematically demanding in comparison, and they are largely integrated within architectural design. Instead, the issue is that fundamentally, acoustics are not as critical to well-being and will rarely be as discomforting as inappropriate heating or lighting. As a result, the expectations of architects to deal with acoustics are relatively minimal. For a tertiary-educated graduate architect in Australia, acoustic considerations are grouped into integrating environmental systems into conceptual design, alongside water, thermal, and lighting. After registering formally as an architect after two years of practice, this requirement is changed from “into the conceptual design”, to “in response to consultants’ advice”. So, rely on consultants they do - generally much too late in the design process for them to have a significant impact on the design itself, relegating them to recommending wall treatments and absorbent dividers.

But at least they make the office look pretty (...sometimes?).