Background
The Bradford Parkside Sports Centre is a community sports hall, used for all manner of sporting activities, including basketball, badminton and more. Husht were called in to help the centre improve its acoustics, and meet the standards set by Sports England, who part-funded the project.
The Problem
Sports halls are naturally challenging from an acoustic perspective. They generally make considerable use of hard, flat surfaces on the floor, walls and ceiling. This, combined with high ceilings and a frequently loud environment means that they can be excessively noisy with lots of reverberation. This was the case for the Bradford Parkside Sports Centre, which faced difficulties when events were held in the space. In addition, those taking part in sports activities in the hall found communication difficult as a result of significant reverberation.
Our Solution
Our solution was to install a series of MuffleWall acoustic wall panels on each of the sports hall walls. These high quality panels do an excellent job of absorbing sound, and we chose blue panels to match the existing paintwork. In addition to the coloured MuffleWall panels, we also installed MufflePrint panels. These custom-printed panels can be ordered with any image, making them ideal for graphics, logos, photos and more. In this case, attractive sports-inspired artwork was chosen by the client.
The Results
The sports hall now benefits from excellent acoustics, with a large proportion of the wall covered with Muffle’s acoustic panels. Reverberation has been reduced, which makes events more enjoyable for visitors, and overall sound levels have been reduced for sports activities in the hall. In addition, the hall has been given an aesthetic makeover, with the inclusion of attractive art panels.
