Architecture class tests celebrated Hill acoustics

They listened to Elvis and they listened to Bach. Then they sounded off.

Scores of architecture students visited Hill Auditorium yesterday, testing the auditorium's celebrated acoustics that have made it the ideal place for nearly any concert.

Professor Mojtaba Navvab's Environmental Technology class sat in strategic locations throughout the auditorium's three levels, listening to a variety of musical samples and recording their impressions.

Instruments designed to measure light, sound, temperature and humidity provided objective measurements.

The measurements will be correlated with the students' subjective impressions of the acoustics.

DAVID ROCHKIND/Daily Associate Prof. of Architecture and Urban Planning Mojtaba Navvab adjusts a speaker at Hill Auditorium yesterday, where his class tested acoustics.

Students will use the information to reach conclusions about what types of sound please the human ear most.

The class project comes as Hill Auditorium is waiting for possible renovations.

University Architect Douglas Hanna said a renovation project has been in the works for eight years, and his office expects to propose a plan soon.

Hanna said some of the improvements include power supplies, electrical outlets, elevators and handicap-accessible seating.

Hanna said his office has not even reached the point where it could review the possibility of installing a new sound system.

But even the possibility of a new sound system concerns some people.

"If you put in a sound system, you have acknowledged that you cannot distribute the sound properly," Navvab said.

George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein and the Vienna Philharmonic top the impressive list of performers who have graced the auditorium's stage.

But some think the auditorium still is in need of a sound system.

Roger Arnett, sound engineer for the School of Music, said the current sound system "is not adequate."

Hanna's office expects to have a plan for the renovation by spring.

He said one of the questions his office is asking as it examines the possibilities in renovating Hill Auditorium is, "What do we need to rejuvenate?"

10-20-98