Worship Facilities

Chiesa di S. Maria Nuova

Designed by Arch. Mario Botta, the Church of Santa Maria Nuova is "an innovative art work and worthy of being visited"

The Church of Santa Maria Nuova in Terranuova Bracciolini was inaugurated on Saturday, October 9, 2010 with a large gathering of the faithful. From the beginning it was considered "an innovative art work and worthy of being visited” - designed by one of the most important figures of contemporary architecture, the Ticino architect Mario Botta (Architect Mario Botta on Wikipedia), whose production since 1960 has ranged from single-family homes, original expressions of the Ticino school, up to large public buildings, libraries, theaters, museums, churches and synagogues built throughout the world.

Being able to collaborate with a team of designers to such a high level has been a privilege.

Mario Botta Architetti Studio provided us with the designs by which we could make a 3D acoustic CAD model to study internal sound propagation. The particular geometry of the room made it difficult to achieve good acoustics. For this reason we developed a correction able to lower the reverberation time, together with the electroacoustic system planning, able to increase the intelligibility of speech parameters.

Details

The church was designed by Arch.:

Mario Botta

Info

Location Terranuova Bracciolini (AR), Italy

Link www.parrocchiaterranuova.it

Details
Architectural Acoustics	Worship Facilities
Rooms	The Church
Audio System	JBL CBT100

The Church
Area	450 m²	Volume	4000 m³

Reverberation time

2.8s @ empty room; 1.9s @ occupied

Description

After several comparisons with Arch. Botta Studio we found the best solution for acoustic correction which was also aesthetically pleasing. Slats of plasterboard were placed in front of sound-absorbing material: a simple correction that reduces of almost 4 seconds the room reverberation time, bringing it to optimum levels. Each plaster slat creates a cylindrical acoustic diffusion on medium-high frequencies, those typical of consonants, which favors speech intelligibility. Thanks to this device, a part of the acoustic energy which is reflected on the walls is absorbed, the remaining part is redistributed evenly in all directions, giving rise to a very natural sound field. Even the tracking of JBL directive loudspeakers has been optimized after several acoustic CAD simulations: the sound pressure level is quite low but the final result is that of a homogeneous sound perception throughout the church.