Church of Saint Bernadette

Tisseyre + Associés has 40 years of experience in the acoustics of performance halls, its core business originally. 30 years ago, anticipating the digital revolution and 3D visualization, we developed a tool for 3D models of performance halls: Hall Acoustics^®. Instead of using the sound ray shooting technique which does not take into account the architectural details, we use the finite element mesh technique which allows these details to be modeled with finesse in order to fully integrate them into the acoustic performance. of the room from its conception. Based on the observation that the acoustics of a performance hall are structuring for its architecture, we have developed a joint working methodology with the architect.

Complete acoustic mission

Thanks to our 3D modeling tool, Hall Acoustics^®, we collaborated from the design phase with the architect in order to integrate the acoustic performance of the hall into the architecture. Our work therefore does not focus on the dimensioning of a posteriori solutions of acoustic absorbers to attenuate the effects of reverberations. We worked with the architect on the choice of shapes and materials used in order to optimize the reverberations so that they contribute to the acoustic performance of the room. In the church of Sainte-Bernadette, it was necessary both to optimize the effects of reverberations to promote liturgical listening, while ensuring speech intelligibility. In order to obtain a reverberation of 2.5 seconds (at 500 and 1000 Hz) we have designed:

• Reflecting and absorbing planes allowing to increase the close reflections to satisfy the intelligibility on the one hand, and the delays on the distant reflections, so as to give a high overall reverberation, on the other hand.
• Panels, in the shape of a curved triangle, below the ceiling in the frame, from half of each wing to the bottom.

Tailor-made electroacoustic sound system mission

The integration of the acoustic treatment within its architecture also allowed us to integrate a custom sound system with very high electroacoustic performance.