"Midterm" Review and the Final Stretch

It has almost been a month since the last post and within that time I have had some promising results! 

I was able to compare the acoustic performance of three real courtrooms with my latest design. In short, my results were great. Here is the proof: 

The following tests show the Reverberation Time, Reflection patterns, STI, C50, and Total SPL of three real courtrooms. Hope everyone remembers what those metrics mean! 

As you can see the Marin Courtroom performs better than the other two...all of the metrics are where we want them to be for Speech Intelligibility. Next up, the test results from my latest layout:

I have shown the results as a three step process, showing how the shape (section) of the room greatly improves the desired metrics.

You can see that my Reverberation Time is well below the desired 1 sec...even across the target frequency range. My C50 is also above 0 over the entire range. Lastly, my STI at the furthest point from a sound source in the room is a .86, this is great considering the highest rating is a 1. 

Next up are the plan, section, and layouts of my latest design. 

What I liked most about this layout was the addition of another witness stand to accompany the double lectern. This gives, in my opinion, a unique cross and direct examination process. The main purpose of the double witness layout is to minimize bias and provide equal distances and views to both attorney teams. 

I only have about 4 more weeks to construct an acoustic model, compile a "coherent" report, and produce a presentation which gets all of this information across... :/ 

Hopefully the next few posts will document the progress of the model, look for this progress very soon! 

Introducing the CLC...

In my quest to create the ultimate circular well layout I have created the "Courtroom Layout Configurator", or CLC. 

The CLC is a tool that I created which, hopefully, will help me find the best layout for the well. It is at a 3/16" = 1'-0" scale. Feedback from the last review assured me that I was headed in the right direction but the layout still needed some polishing. 

The CLC has 4 "rings". These rings represent the courtroom Well. In total, the four rings have 108 points, or people. The minimum number of people in a district court well is 22 people. Obviously I have "over-calculated" the space requirements. This was done on purpose, lawyers take up the most space in the well because they can easily have a team of 20+ people; if both the prosecution and defendant have a 20 group team that is an extra 40 people (total of 62). This number can be higher depending on the complexity of the case, so the 108 is my buffer.
  
The smallest ring has a 14' diameter and features radial lines at 20 degree angles...this produces 18 lines (360 degrees in a circle). The 20 degree increments are the best increments that allow for even spacing (remember the point of the circle is equality) and adequate spacing in between each line or point (2.4'). This spacing is appropriate based upon the social distance research I conducted earlier. The idea is to have the most "important" people here (Jury, witness, lectern)

The second ring is 20' diameter and also has 18 radial points (or lines) at 20 degree increments (the spacing is still even and only increases to about 2.5') The idea is to have the second most important people here, Judge, clerk, bailiff.

The third circle has a  28' diameter. Since it is double the diameter of the first ring the radial lines decrease to 10 degree increments. This doubles the number of lines to 36 (18 x 2) and keeps the spacing at 2.4'. This is where all of the attorney space begins.

The fourth ring has a diameter of 36', the lines are also at 10 degree increments, slightly increasing the spacing to about 2.5' again. The attorney space would continue here. 

The four well rings are on a slider, the slider can turn 360 degrees and allows the well to slide from perfectly center to to exactly off center and everywhere in between.

The bottom circle represents the audience (Gallery). It has radial lines in 10 degree increments; these lines would correspond to the Gallery layout.

The CLC:

Here is a video of the CLC

 This is the update to my library...notice the Binder (it's full of my research and tests so far!) 

4 Plans

My review on Wednesday went well! 

I came up with four layouts for the well 

1. Jury En Banc - Center
2. Jury En Banc - Off Center
3. Jury In Round - Center
4. Jury In Round - Off Center

So, I hope you have been keeping up with some of the acoustic vernacular. I tested each layout for STI, Total SPL, RT, C50, and to examine the 3rd order reflection patterns. 

A picture is worth a thousand words so take a look at everything I presented on Wednesday:

Revamping the Well.

So, we have been over the acoustic side effects of a circle, now let's cover the architectural side effects of a circle.

Obviously, everyone faces each other in a circle and attention is, more or less, focused at the central point of the circle. When a person speaks, the attention usually switches to that person. With that in mind, the potential architectural side effects are:

• If anyone is in the center, their back is always to someone (duh)
• While the gallery (audience) seating can be circularly arranged to encompass the well, doing so would introduce lots of issues with people being behind the judge...how does he or she get in and out? What about the Jury, Attorneys and Witnesses? Do they have to go through the gallery?
• Smaller diameter circle means more intimate setting - seating around the circle is closer, this can be good or bad.
• Larger diameter circle means more spacious seating but the distances could affect speech intelligibility and the well takes up more space in the courtroom.
• Who gets to be in the circle? Are multiple circles possible? (This is where the majority of my attention will be)

While I don't have the solution perfectly figured out, I do believe the changes I have made to the circular arrangement of the courtroom are pointed in the right direction. 

Basically, I thought of the circular court as a sports game and venue (Football Stadium, Soccer Stadium, Boxing Ring, Bull Fighting Arena, Wrestling Ring etc.) All of these events and accompanying venues have a "circular" arrangement. Examining these layouts has proved to be helpful in determining a viable solution. More on this later! 

I have another review on Wednesday, the purpose of this review is to get feedback on these revamped well layouts and show how they perform acoustically (those tests will occur between now and then.) I will have a public defender from Atlanta and outside acoustician at the review, so the feedback should be good! Here is a teaser of what I plan to have for review...

Version 1 (view from the entrance and gallery seating)

Version 2 (view from the gallery and entrance)

Version 2 (Juror view in well)

Version 2 (attorney view in well - far)

 Version 2 (Judge View)

Version 2 (Lectern 1 view in well)

Version 2 (Court reporter view in well) 

 Shout out to Tucker and Kristen Wigington for letting me use their WiFi to post this! 

Circle Side Effects!

In the last post I talked about "Circle Side Effects" so I will explain what I meant by that. 

Have you ever been to the room where they keep The U.S Constitution in D.C? You might have noticed this room is circular and that you can hear conversations occurring on the opposite side of  the room, almost perfectly! This is "whisper effect" and circles are prone to this because of the focused reflections that occur in a circle. Take this picture:

The yellow lines represent the reflection patterns of a sound source in this space over a given time (2 seconds, and calculating 3rd order reflections). The "starburst" looking pattern at the top of the circle is the source, this is where the sound is coming from. Do you notice anything odd about these reflections? 

See the "inner circle" that is created by the concentration of yellow lines near the bottom of the image? That means that this area is receiving more reflections than say the middle of the circle...this essentially is what leads to whisper effect!

For some contrast let's look at a square shape:

See the difference? The concentration of reflections is much lighter, so whisper effect doesn't occur.

Obviously the whisper effect could be very problematic for a courtroom so this is the main problem that I must account for, handling the reflections of the circle. 

The First Review!

It snowed in Atlanta today! Had to get that excitement out of the way. Apologies for going a bit without any posts, I have been busy researching lots of information on the history of the courthouse/courtroom and performing lots of acoustic tests on the basic room shapes. All of this was necessary to build up a stronger argument and give a "justifiable" point for doing all of this. I even constructed a digital 3D model of Frank Lloyd Wright's Marin Civic Center courtroom. I performed some rudimentary tests on this courtroom's acoustics.

What I found was very interesting...in a nut shell, the space isn't that bad for speech intelligibility. 

Secondly, my other acoustic tests have proven that the circle may not be so bad after all when compared to a square or other shapes. It's more of dealing with "circle side effects"...more on this later. For now, here is a quick video that I made which summarizes the presentation I gave for my first review yesterday (Feb 8), it went well and I received some great feedback!

Here's the boards: 

And here is the video, enjoy! (Might want to set the quality to HD so it is crisp/clear!)

Precedents and the Start of a Solution

I was able to find some interesting studies and articles concerning human social behavior (distance relationships and sight lines specifically). I have used these resources to create a series of diagrams which will help me arrange the courtroom in a purely circular fashion. Here they are:

 This first diagram is on social behavior within certain distances, this helped me decided what parties in the courtroom should be closer than others.

This diagram represents those distance relationships around the circle

This diagram represents each parties "Isovist" or their field of vision. The human eye has a total visual field of 150 degrees with comfortable "optimum" vision occurring within a 60 degree view! Basically I wanted to make sure everyone could see everyone without even turning the head (this will help in the acoustics!!!)

This is a sub-diagram of the one above, it shows a crucial comparison between the attorney tables and the jury. In a traditional courtroom layout many attorneys favor the tables closet to the Jury...it has been proven that it can have influence (sometimes significant) on the jury's decision. My arrangement has eliminated this bias since in any direction, both attorney areas are equidistant to the jury! 


I also found precedent for the use of a circular layout in a justice setting! Native Americans have a form of "Traditional Dispute Resolution" in which restorative justice is accomplished through the use of peacemaking circles. The article stresses the differences in the American Judicial System and this traditional system as the following:

"The differences between Native American and mainstream Western justice and concept of law can be explained in terms of the concepts of "horizontal" and "vertical" justice. Under this framework, the adversarial system of mainstream American justice can be classified as a vertical system. In a vertical system, the legal structure is situated upon ascending levels of hierarchies and power. Judges in an adversarial system have the power to determine the outcome of conflict, a decision that results in a win-loss situation for the parties. The parties to a dispute or criminal action, based on their low position on the hierarchical structure, do not have any significant power in determining the outcome of the dispute...The existing retributive criminal justice seeks to answer the following questions: (1) "What laws have been broken?"; (2) "Who did it?"; and (3) "What do they deserve? A restorative justice approach, on the other hand, asks: (1) "Who has been hurt?"; (2) "What are their needs?"; and (3) "Whose obligations are these?""

The great thing about this system is Native American Tribes are still practicing these behaviors today on through their system of law. While it is not an exact translation, it does prove that such a move in our system could work!  

So I have a viable layout for arrangement in a circle, I have proof that a similar system is in place and works. Next, it's time to plan out the courtroom based on these diagrams...then things will really get difficult, it'll be time to test the acoustics of these arrangements! 

My Work Stations for the semester

So this is just a quick peek of my "dual command stations" for this semester. I'll be splitting my time between the Music Technology building AKA Couch 220 and my desk in Hinman AKA Alvin's desk haha.

Here they are, both are already the victims of my work and they will progressively get dirtier as the semester keeps going

Couch 220

 Couch 220

 Notebook

 Alvin's Desk

 Alvin's Desk

Alvin's Desk

Preliminaries...why the Circle is bad for Speech

So here is what I know so far about acoustics in a circular shape... short story, they are terrible for speech.

Sound waves reflect, and loosely speaking they reflect infinitely until they completely decay. Of course human ears can only hear a certain frequency range (around 20Hz -20kHz) so after a while we can't hear them. However, it is important to note the frequency range of human speech is approximately 300Hz - 3000Hz. To summarize and simplify many things, reflections for speech are generally a bad thing; reflections increase the energy build up in a room and cause the Reverberation Time (RT) to increase. A desirable RT is highly dependent on the function of the room; a general RT for speech settings (lecture halls, classrooms, and yes, COURTROOMS!!!) should stay within .3 - 1 second.

Speech Intelligibly (SI) is a measurement which determines how well words are understood by the human ear; it is exactly what the name suggests haha! One of the metrics used to determine SI is Speech Transmission Index (STI). STI is a scale from 0 - 1, 0 being unacceptable and 1 being excellent.

So let's review before the next part. We want an STI closer to 1 and an RT between .3 and 1 second. Here is what the results of my preliminary tests were. In these tests, many things were assumed to get to the "root of the acoustic problem!" Here are the results of Circle Room "A1"

The RT of a Circular room "A"

Remember our speech range of 300Hz-3000hz, the RT in this range is well above our 1 second maximum. NOT GOOD!

So the majority of our speech is not even at .5. Remember we want close to 1! NOT GOOD!

A 3D distribution of the STI metrics on Circle Room A1

Notice all of the reflections in Circle Room A1. NOT GOOD! 

Why a Circle?

You might have asked why I am choosing to tackle the shape of a circle for the courtroom layout? Why not say a rhombus?

Last year, I went with my studio to the AIA AAJ conference in Miami, FL to present our projects for the design of a U.S. Federal Courthouse. This annual conference is where the AIA's Academy of Architecture for Justice recognizes big advancements, obstacles, and players in this market sector of architecture. There were some insightful ideas that I will always remember from the conference, much of it had to do with the effectiveness of rehabilitation in our current justice system. The most insightful/interesting thing I remembered from the conference was an odd taboo towards the idea of a circular courtroom...

I discovered the taboo when two of my classmates presented their project which featured circular courtrooms in the design. After they were finished much of the criticism was on the design of the courtroom and in particular, the decision to make it in a circle. Why? Many of the members asked. The general consensus among these professionals was that many architects had played with the poetic purity of a circular courtroom and fallen victim to this design's traps; terrible acoustics, resolution of a successful layout, and disintegration of traditional courtroom decorum. One comment even stated that "if the great Frank Lloyd Wright himself could not successively resolve this issue it can't be done. It has been tried and it does not work. Plain and simple."

Think of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. The idea of circle poses a substantial social theory in the courtroom, everyone is a part of the process and hierarchy (not order) is minimized. Of course some would argue that their is hierarchy in the courtroom for a reason...and I agree there should be. Hierarchy doesn't have to be through intimidation though, it can also be through mutual respect. More on this later!

Intro: The Beginning of Something Unkown

Hello! 

This time of year will always be a special time for me, four years ago I had the opportunity to experience studying abroad with Clemson University's Barcelona, Spain program. I kept a blog during my time abroad and I enjoy vicariously reliving those days by re-reading my blog posts. Doing this allows me to see how much (or little) I have changed since that time, and it is an eerily effective way of self evaluation. Perhaps I am being dramatic, whimsical, or just plain weird but it gave me an idea...what if I kept a blog about my experience this semester???

What is so special about this semester you ask? Well, this semester, my FINAL semester of higher education; I will be completing an independent studio project as a part of my Masters Program requirements for Georgia Tech. Just in case there is anyone reading this post who is not familiar with how architecture education works, I will very briefly explain: 

Studio = the most fun, stressful, exciting, angering, inspiring, depressing, wild, overwhelming, and creative 6 credit course I have and will ever take! 

What is my independent studio on? Simple, how can the courtroom be re-thought to work architecturally and acoustically to fit within a circular layout? What social ramifications could this have on the current decorum of the U.S judicial system and its associated processes? While I have an idea, this will be among the things I intend to discover.  

So while there won't be any "magical" posts about Breakfast in Barcelona, Ventures in Valencia, Romping in Rome, or Grandeur in Germany, there will be careful accounts of my findings, successes, and setbacks over the coming four months. Hopefully the blog will become more colorful, interactive, and informative as we progress. Should I find a viable solution it might turn out to be a big deal or it could be humorously insignificant! Who knows? Regardless, I am glad to be blogging again, and glad to have an audience, however big or small it may be.

Enjoy this journey with me...