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Acoustic panels

Design Project 4 weeks Medium build

Design and build a wall panel that absorbs sound and looks like it belongs in the room. Test the material choice, not just the look, and write a spec sheet for the result.

A set of hexagonal wall panels in muted colours, one with a laser-cut perforated wood face, mounted on a classroom wall.

Overview

Rooms with hard walls are loud. Sound bounces until it dies out, and speech gets muddy. An absorber turns some of that sound into heat inside a porous material instead of letting it bounce. A good panel is thick enough, porous enough, and open enough at the face to let the sound reach the core.

Most commercial panels are a foam or mineral-wool core in a fabric-wrapped frame. That works and it is boring. Your job is to make a panel that works and that someone would choose to put on a wall: a perforated wooden face with a pattern you designed, a felt panel cut into a shape, a set that tiles, a panel that uses a material nobody has tried yet. The look and the material choice are both assessed, and so is whether you tested rather than assumed.

Skills needed

  • How absorption worksresource comingPorous absorbers, thickness and air gap, why hard surfaces reflect, and what NRC means.
  • Testing a materialresource comingA repeatable clap or balloon-pop test recorded on a phone, and reading the decay.
  • Building a frameresource coming1×3 or 2×2 frames, corner joints, and a back that keeps the core in.
  • Patterned faces on the laserPerforation patterns that let sound through to the core, in 3 mm plywood or MDF.
  • Parametric patterns in FusionHole size and spacing as parameters, so open area is a number you control.
  • Fabric wrappingresource comingStretching and stapling cloth over a frame without wrinkles.

Assessment

Criterion Developing Proficient Exemplary
Material testing One material, no comparison Three materials tested the same way, results charted Test method is repeatable and the result changed the design
Absorption Panel is mostly hard or too thin Meets thickness and open-area limits Measurably better decay than the bare wall in the class test
Aesthetics Standard wrapped rectangle A clear idea, well executed People ask about it; the pattern or form has a reason
Build Loose core, wrinkles, visible fasteners Square frame, tight face, clean hanging Finished like a product, back and all
Spec sheet Missing numbers Complete and accurate Someone could order ten from it

Deliverables

  • A material test report comparing at least three core materials, with recordings and a chart
  • The finished panel, at least 600 × 600 mm or equivalent area, with a hanging system
  • A spec sheet, one page, with dimensions, materials, estimated open area, cost, and your test result
  • Installation on the wall as part of the class set

Materials

  • [object Object]
  • 1×3 pine or 2×2 for frames, or a printed or laser-cut frame if small
  • 3 mm plywood or MDF for perforated faces, acoustically transparent fabric for wrapped ones
  • Staples, screws, wood glue, French cleat stock or sawtooth hangers
  • Phone with a recording app, tape measure, a balloon

Steps

Week 1: Learn and test

  1. Read about porous absorption and NRC. Understand why thickness matters more than surface.
  2. Set up the class test: a fixed spot in the shop, a phone recording at a fixed distance, a balloon pop. Record the bare condition three times.
  3. Put a 300 × 300 mm sample of each candidate core material at the spot, at the thickness you would use, and record again. Read the decay time from the waveform.
  4. Chart it. Choose a core with a reason.

Week 2: Design

  1. Sketch the panel: shape, face, colour, how it hangs, how it tiles with the others.
  2. If the face is perforated, model the pattern in Fusion with hole diameter and spacing as parameters, and calculate open area. Adjust until it clears 25%.
  3. Model the frame with real stock and pull a cut list.

Week 3: Build

  1. Cut and assemble the frame. Square it. Fit the back.
  2. Cut the face on the laser, or wrap the fabric: stretch from the centre out, staple opposite sides in turn.
  3. Fit the core. Leave an air gap behind it if the design has one.
  4. Fix the hanging hardware and the cleat on the wall.

Week 4: Test, install, document

  1. Test the finished panel the same way as the samples. Add it to the chart.
  2. Hang it with the class set. Photograph the wall.
  3. Write the spec sheet.

Stretch options

  • A panel with a hidden LED backlight through the perforations.
  • A modular system where three shapes tile the whole wall.
  • Grow a mycelium core in a mould and test it against mineral wool.