Listening to the structure: Mass-timber construction at the Groton Hill Music Center

• Published in: The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 2024-03, Vol.155 (3_Supplement), p.A240-A240
• Main Authors: Giegold, Carl P., Kamper, Laurie, Cudequest, Brandon, Skarha, Matt
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0001-4966; 1520-8524
• DOI: 10.1121/10.0027360

Historically, Western music spaces were built with massive masonry-bearing walls. While these designs offer structural and acoustical benefits, today’s construction culture is conscious of more fluid forms and embodied carbon, which influences how consultants think about the design of spaces for music. The recently completed Groton Hill Music Center is unique for its use of mass timber’s sculptural capabilities to shape performance space acoustic volumes forthrightly, with little additional finish treatment. The center features studio classrooms for students of all ages, an orchestral rehearsal space, a 300-seat recital hall for soloists and small ensembles, and a grand 1000-seat concert hall that opens to view for a 500-seat lawn audience. Structure and architecture are largely unified, with one’s acoustic experience defined by the sculpted mass timber structure. The comparatively light-weight timber/concrete composite structure represents a significant and somewhat acoustically risky reduction in mass to provide an acoustically warm environment. This presentation will explore how the structure was optimized to provide stiffness and multi-scale diffusion, taking the ideals of classic concert hall design, and embracing contemporary construction technologies and acoustical analyses.