Page 31 - Summer2022
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Court Appointed Special Advocates Playhouse Within an intensive three-week summer course, students were tasked with designing and constructing a playhouse to be raffled at a local mall to benefit Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA). This opportunity provided a seldom-offered model where the course included students from multiple-year levels. They learned how design deci- sions based on modularity, transportability, and available materials resulted in specific acoustical properties. Seated children in the lower space hear their voice reflected back in an additive manner due to the twisting and stepping of the cedar, cypress, and acrylic layers. Similarly, this project embodies the essence of “undergraduate courses in acous- tics for a School of Architecture.” Marshall (1963) states the relationship between acoustics and a design process must be identified “first in terms of the process, and second in terms of the aesthetic judgments which by definition are integral with ‘design.’” The playhouse demonstrated acoustical results of materials and shape through immer- sive learning (Figure 6). Stabilized Compressed Earth Block A collaborative multidiscipline team of OU students and fac- ulty explored earthen design and construction techniques through an elective course that led to an Environmental Pro- tection Agency (EPA) P3 Award and Grant. The team then partnered with Cleveland County Habitat for Humanity (CCHFH) to design and construct a stabilized compressed earth block (SCEB) residence and a conventionally wood- framed version of equal layout, area, volume, apertures, and roof structure on an adjacent site. Through both laboratory     Figure 5. Top: palette of interior finish materials shared in the classroom to teach color, texture, and related acoustical properties prior to experiencing spaces in person. Bottom: students visiting the Booker T. Washington High School for Performing and Visual Arts recording studio in Dallas, Texas, with Russ Berger and Richard Schrag, to teach audio production. The field trip allowed the relationship of theory and principles as students asked questions about stretched fabric, sloped laminated glass, and infrastructure/routing such as microphone inputs, isolated grounds, and rack equipment.  Figure 6. Left: students and faculty designed and built the playhouse in the University of Oklahoma Gibbs College of Architecture Creating_Making Lab. Center: delivery and installation of the playhouse to the raffle winner’s property. Right: child climbing the interior stepped and faceted enclosure also responsible for the acoustical results.     Summer 2022 • Acoustics Today 31 


































































































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