Worship Space Acoustics by David T. Bradley Erica E. Ryherd & Lauren M. Ronsse

Author:David T. Bradley, Erica E. Ryherd & Lauren M. Ronsse
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer New York, New York, NY

St. Margaret’s Chapel

St. Margaret’s School is an all-girls high school located in the quiet, upscale Tokyo suburb of Kugayama, in Suginami City. The school is associated with St. Paul University, a well-known, Jesuit-founded university, also located in Tokyo.

The school’s St. Margaret’s Chapel was built around 80 years ago and included a pipe organ. However, the pipe organ deteriorated over time. The school decided to replace it with a new pipe organ and commissioned Taylor & Boodie, a U.S. organ builder located in the state of Virginia, to build the new instrument. Taylor & Boodie requested adjustments to the chapel’s room acoustics so that the new organ would sound its best. The school asked Nagata Acoustics to consult on the renovation project for this purpose.

The framework of the chapel building and its floor are entirely made of wood. Moreover, the area around the altar is wood paneling. Upon investigation, we confirmed that the vibrations of these wood elements were absorbing the low register sounds.

Because the pipe organ is installed at one side of the altar, we determined that strengthening the walls and floor of the altar area would be an effective strategy to improve the chapel’s acoustics.

We removed a piece of wall paneling from the altar area to learn about the wall’s construction. We discovered that the panels were made of oak, each approximately 40 cm (15.75 inches) in width and approximately 4 cm (1.6 inches) thick. Each panel was supported by a brace, and was kept in place by a narrow top beam decorated with delicate carving.

Between the chapel building’s frame and the panels was space filled with nothing but air. Therefore we devised a plan to fill in the space between the structure’s frame and the paneling, as we knew that this would stop the wall panels from vibrating and absorbing low register reverberation. We affixed numerous layers of gypsum board to both the chapel frame and the frame-facing sides of the oak paneling. Then we filled in the small remaining crevices with a gypsum-based adhesive.

The original Chapel floor was made of oak boards supported by joists. The substructure was Japanese-style wood joinery, with the wood spaced at 40 cm intervals. To strengthen the floor, we used adhesive and screws to affix 8 mm (0.3 inch) gypsum board to the underside portions of the wood boards in between the floor joists. We layered the gypsum board, putting between four and eight layers under each oak floorboard, and we added additional vertical supports between the substructure and the oak floorboards as well.

The space was designed to support pipe organ music. Sound is typically amplified during services. The reverberation time data were measured in the unoccupied space.

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