Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

Undulating Ceiling Helps Quiet Noisy Cafeteria

  • 04/01/19
armstrong

Iron Forge Educational Center in Pennsylvania installed undulating ceiling from Armstrong Ceiling Solutions.

Over the course of its 95-year history, the Iron Forge Educational Center in Boiling Spring, Pa., underwent seven renovation projects. The building no longer appeared cohesive, and as a result, school officials decided to renovate the entire building to create a more unified environment.

The existing cafeteria provided a number of challenges, including a low ceiling and the need to provide a higher level of noise-reducing acoustical performance. To meet the objectives, the design team at Crabtree, Rohrbaugh & Associates Architects selected Serpentina Classic clouds from Armstrong Ceiling Solutions. Ideal for use in exposed structures, the pre-engineered 3D-curved-metal ceiling system provides a dramatic visual along with acoustical control when using perforated panels.

Senior Project Designer Arif Hasanbhai explains that the team wanted an acoustical ceiling that would complement the new “natural” design motif of the school. As a result, the clouds are custom green in color. The exposed plenum was painted black to make the ceiling clouds pop visually and hide the piping and conduit above them.

“The Serpentina clouds define the space and provide interest in the ceiling without sacrificing ceiling height,” he states. “They also allowed us to expose the structure permitting the space to be as open as possible while still maintaining acoustics.”

To provide the desired noise absorption, acoustical infill panels were placed behind the perforations in the Serpentina clouds. “We always use an acoustical backer because it goes hand-in-hand with an exposed structure and a comfortable acoustic environment,” Hasanbhai notes.

www.armstrong.com

This article originally appeared in the School Planning & Management April/May 2019 issue of Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  • University of Kansas Breaks Ground on Entrepreneurship Hub

    The University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kan., recently held a groundbreaking ceremony for the new KU Entrepreneurship Hub, according to university news. The Hub is part of the university’s School of Business and will include spaces for experiential learning and programming.

  • Designing for Every Mind

    Learning environments have the power to shape not just what students know, but who they become. When a school is designed with genuine empathy—for the full range of ways students think, sense, and engage with the world—it becomes more than a building. It becomes a catalyst for growth, confidence, and belonging. That is the animating idea behind neurodiverse design, and it is one that is transforming how more architects and designers are thinking about school design.

  • Surging Demand for Student Housing Fuels Major Campus Investment Opportunities

    University leaders throughout the U.S. are accelerating plans to modernize and expand student housing as enrollment stabilizes and demand for on-campus living rebounds. Recent data from the National Center for Education Statistics indicates that total postsecondary enrollment is projected to grow through the end of the decade, with undergraduate enrollment alone expected to increase by more than 8 percent by 2030.

  • abstract illustration of school gym

    How the Gymnasium Can Serve as a Model for Learning Space Design

    Multipurpose gyms work because flexibility was built into the brief from the start, not retrofitted later. The same logic applies to academic spaces.