Colombia. Seeking to cover the needs of acoustic conditioning in different spaces, several sound engineers got together and created the company DBA Acústica. This was 10 years ago, during which time they have expanded their service offering to sound, noise control, ambient acoustics and AV integration.
AVI Latin America spoke with Sebastián Rengifo, founding partner and project director at the company, who highlighted that, in the years of operation, they have seen how acoustic design is very underestimated, being a neuralgic point for the company and it is something that has been changing hand in hand with the architects.
"Functional spaces were delivered at a technological level. But they didn't sound good. We had many projects in which the space was already delivered, functional, inhabited, and acoustically it was not viable. There was discomfort from the top management. This involved rework, when those rework is done it involves more investment of money than when it is planned from the beginning. We are still in that transition, because the projects are delivered to the client and they evaluate their experience and if the acoustics are not within that experience, it is not going to be complete," he said.
He added that when a project is finished and requires acoustic intervention, they focus on being as efficient as possible in terms of restricting the operability of the space. "We make interventions that do not have a high impact on the operability of the space, and that, starting from the basis they have, which is an acoustic conditioning that is often null, we have to restructure architectural finishes, always preserving the line of architectural design, but that is viable with the acoustic panels that we are going to implement".
The critical listening spaces where they encounter the most acoustic conditioning problems are recording studios and movie theaters, where sound behavior becomes more relevant. There are also spaces such as theaters, boardrooms, the latter with greater relevance of acoustic problems after the pandemic, with the massification of videoconferencing solutions.
Sebastián Rengifo concluded that "I have always said that if an architect has an acoustic problem once, it doesn't happen twice. It happens to him once and he stays agreeing for life, he already takes it into account in his projects. That's the idea, to be able to educate as we work."
