Mission
The Technical Committee on Room and Building Acoustics is a forum that unites researchers and professionals from diverse European countries and overseas, all with a shared interest for room and building acoustics.
EAA TC RBA is aimed to be a dynamic platform for sharing information about conferences, research papers, journals, research projects and issues related to room and building acoustics.
The TC RBA plays an important role in managing structured sessions during EAA conferences, as well as organising workshops and symposia on related topics. It also aims at stimulating joint activities and mutual worldwide co-operation between researchers and related Technical Committees, such as the Technical Committee on Architectural Acoustics (TCAA) of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) or related working groups of ISO and CEN.
Main Activities
- Promoting and organizing structured sessions at EAA conferences and congresses
- Organizing symposia on room and building acoustics, alternating between room acoustic topics and building acoustic topics
- Meetings of the TC in connection with other meetings or conferences
- Coordinating special issues in scientific journals on the topics of Room and Building Acoustics.
- Promoting the EU networking actions (such as COST actions) and multidisciplinary EU projects.
Board
Mélanie Nolan (co-chair room acoustics)
Teresa Carrascal (co-chair building acoustics)
Advisory council:
Michael Vorländer
Monika Rychtáriková
Birgit Rasmussen
Patrizio Fausti
Stefan Schoenwald
Arianna Astolfi
In addition, there are six WGs. Members that are interested in contributing to a WG are invited to contact the person in charge.
WG 1 – Acoustics in Open-Plan Schools and Offices. Valteri Hongisto, valtteri.hongisto@turkuamk.fi (wg1)
WG 2 – Sound Insulation Requirements and Sound Classification Birgit Rasmussen, bir@sbi.aau.dk (wg2)
WG 3 – New Measurement Methods in Building Acoustics. Patrizio Fausti, patrizio.fausti@unife.it (wg3). Currently not active.
WG 4 – Speech production and perception in rooms. Arianna Astolfi, arianna.astolfi@polito.it, Viveka Lyberg Ahlander, viveka.lybergahlander@abo.fi , Nicola Prodi. nicolaprodi@unife.it Pasquale Bottalico pb81@illinois.edu
WG 5 - Human Echolocation.
WG 6 - Requirements for Room Acoustical Parameters. Uwe Stephenson, uwestephenson@hcu-hamburg.de
History
The Technical Committee on Room and Building Acoustics (EAA TC-RBA) was established on 15 March 1999 in Berlin, at the occasion of the joint ASA and EAA conference (2nd Forum Acusticum). 25 experts from 9 EU countries (Belgium, Germany, England, France, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and The Netherlands) joined for discussion about the creation of a TC-RBA. This committee has been established as a horizontal forum within EAA for mutual information, discussion and preparation of activities in the field.
Since 2015, the committee is led by two co-chairs with one being expert in the field of room acoustics and one in the field of building acoustics to ensure that both fields are equally represented in the committee work.
In 2016 an advisory council has been established to assist the chairs in decision processes in-between the committee meetings.
Fomer chairs of TC RBA:
Michael Vorländer (First chair of TC-RBA)
Jens-Holger Rindel
Patrizio Fausti
Monika Rychtáriková
Stefan Schoenwald
Arianna Astolfi
Past activities
- Three series of Round Robin for the evaluation of room acoustic prediction models were arranged between 1994 and 2002. Detailed information is available, concerning both the results and the room input data, which means that these three room examples may also be used in the future for testing the prediction capabilities of new room acoustic software and/or the users of such software. (http://www.ptb.de/en/org/1/17/173/roundrobin.htm)
- An open database for loudspeakers (Common Loudspeaker Format) was established in April 2005. Thus loudspeaker performance and polar data from a wide range of loudspeaker producers are available in an open and secure format, useful in connection with room acoustic prediction models. (http://www.clfgroup.org/)
- As a result of collaboration within the WG4, very successful COST Action TU0901: “Integrating and Harmonizing Sound Insulation Aspects in Sustainable Urban Housing Constructions” has been chaired by Birgit Rasmussen and Maria Machimbarena in the years 2010-2013.
- Two editions of the international symposium “The Acoustics of Ancient Theatres”, SAAT, which aims at bringing together experts on the acoustics properties of these monuments.
- SAAT 2011. Patras, Greece.
- SAAT 2022. Verona, Italy.
Information and proceedings of SAAT can be found in https://www.eaa-saat.eu/
How to become a member
All colleagues, who are working in the field of Room and Building Acoustics, are kindly invited to actively participate in our activities, to promote new topics and to foster communication with the community. To become a member, email our chairwomen to join the mailing list and share your insights in Room and Building Acoustics.
Contact:
Teresa Carrascal García (co-chair, building acoustics)
Acoustics. Quality in Construction Unit
Eduardo Torroja Institute for Construction Science. IETcc- CSIC
c/ Serrano Galvache 4
28033 Madrid, Spain
Tel: + 34 91 068 61 63
email: tcarrascal@ietcc.csic.es
Mélanie Nolan (co-chair, room acoustics)
Danmarks Tekniske Universite (DTU)
Department of Electrical and Photonics Engineering, Acoustic Technology
Ørsteds Plads, 352, 028
2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark
Tel: +45 45 253 933
email: melnola@elektro.dtu.dk
