Apostolic Christian Church of Livonia

The Apostolic Christian Church of Livonia uses its dining hall for shared meals and gatherings. When the room filled toward its capacity of about eighty people, conversation grew hard to follow, the sign of a room that held onto sound far longer than a conversation needs.

Challenge

Memtech Acoustics measured reverberation time (RT60) in the hall. It reached 0.8 seconds with the doors closed, above the 0.5 to 0.7 second range that a dining and meeting space calls for. The room was working against itself: a laminate floor, gypsum walls, windows, and a lightly absorptive drop ceiling, all reflecting sound, with a symmetric shape and a long, open path from wall to wall that let reverberation accumulate.

Solution

Memtech set a 0.6 second target and used a parametric model to size the treatment. The engineered design combined custom fabric-wrapped acoustic wall panels with acoustic ceiling tiles, chosen in colors that suit the room, and placed to absorb the reflections that most affect conversation. Memtech also suggested practical additions the congregation could make on its own, from table coverings to a seating layout that keeps voices from lining up along the same path. Memtech coordinated the installation.

Results

After installation, Memtech returned and measured the hall using the same method as the original study. Reverberation had dropped to between 0.5 and 0.6 seconds, meeting the design target and confirming the result by measurement. The hall now holds a comfortable conversation even at a full gathering.