New Dock Hall is a flexible conference and events space located in the heart of Leeds, adjacent to the Leeds Royal Armouries Museum. With a maximum occupancy of 2,500 people and a floor area of 1,259m², it is one of the largest spaces of its type in Leeds. The hall frequently hosts a wide range of uses including business conferences, sporting events, weddings and live music performances, and has a state-of-the-art audio-visual system.

During the events, high operational noise levels are often generated with amplified voice and music, which can include significant low frequency (bass) sound. The building was not constructed specifically for this purpose, with a relatively light-weight roof structure and large vehicular entrance doors providing direct access from the adjacent service yard. The operator had concerns about operational noise break-out potentially resulting in disturbance to the surrounding residential dwellings.

Sandy Brown was appointed to provide acoustic advice in relation to the enhancements to the venue to aid in controlling operational noise break-out. The key acoustic considerations for the project included:

• undertaking detailed and comprehensive environmental noise surveys
• carrying out benchmark testing to quantify the sound insulation performance of the hall envelope, which utilised the in-house AV system
• undertaking assessments to determine the minimum sound insulation performance enhancements required to the envelope to control noise break-out.

The main acoustic challenge was enhancing the airborne sound insulation of the roof while coordinating with existing services. To continue with the existing use, the design enhancements developed included:

• the design and specification of a specialist, acoustically resilient suspended mass ceiling to primarily aid in improving the low-frequency sound insulation performance of the roof whilst coordinating with the existing services and not restricting the operations of the hall
• high performance acoustic external entrance doors to aid in controlling noise break-out
• the setting of operational noise limits that do not restrict the operations of the hall, but whereby the resulting noise breakout is not expected to result in disturbance to the surrounding residential dwellings.