Tenth International Conference on The Constructed Environment

Abstract

Hearing loss can have a dramatic impact on one’s quality of life when it becomes a barrier to communication and social participation. This is particularly significant if one’s occupation is a professor and especially when teaching in the design studio. Because of the nature of the studio course, there are several types of physical settings in which a professor must interact with students both on an individual basis and in groups. These types include individual desk crits, informal pin-ups, reviews in alcoves and corridors as well as reviews in designated review spaces throughout the building. The most common acoustic problems in learning spaces are reverberation, sound reflection, background noise and sound transfer between spaces such as corridors and the classroom. Oftentimes a professor has no control over the variables that contribute to the speech comprehension issues that occur when not being able to hear a student presenting and the subsequent responses provided by the reviewers. This paper illuminates the unique acoustic challenges when teaching design studio, as they relate to a three part socio-spatial conceptual framework: person, built environment, and assistive technology. It will also provide a social-spatial analysis of the experiential aspects as well as the quantitative aspects of teaching in several different spaces. Several recommendations are made to help professors have some control over the problematic variables.