Acoustic Considerations
With designing a Dementia semi-residential care center, acoustics are an essential design aspect to provide with considerations for. Through acoustic manipulation, the space can trigger certain vital emotions that tackle behavioral and psychological complications. The complications that Dementia diagnosed elderly face can affect wayfinding, disorientation, spatial legibility, and user’s personal orientation. As the environment has a significant impact on the elderly’s mood and emotional instabilities, the use of acoustic sound control can be used as a tool to trigger specific emotional, physical, and psychological responses through the control of levels of loudness and sharpness. 50 Acoustic levels can be controlled depending on the spatial zones and its function for the user. The space is divided into five zones: public, semi-public, private, recreation, and work zones. Public Zone The public zone areas within the space are the exhibition, theater, and the courtyard. Since these spaces are mostly acoustically driven to enhance elderly well-being, acoustic control will be mainly controlled to avoid sound leakage out between these spaces and other spaces with the care center. The site provides these spaces with opportunities to function as public spaces, through the use of high ceiling heights (fig. 50,) but does not offer options to help with decreasing sound leakage. To maximize sound efficiency within the theater, the use of acoustic panels, with sound absorptive qualities, the space maximizes acoustical awareness while still maintaining control over the sound distributed. 51 To minimize sound spreading within the exhibition, the use of semi-hard flooring materials will be implemented with an acoustic underlay (fig. 51) to reduce sound transmission of footfall noise, as that is the most noise produced. An acoustic ceiling (fig. 52) will also be implemented to eliminate unnecessary sound reflection. This reduces high stimulation of sounds but doesn’t reduce all sound produced to avoid under-stimulation where elderly could exhibit bored and problematic behavioral actions. 52
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