Study on the acoustic rehabilitation of a church

Everyday stress has become the main reason that affects people's health causing numerous types of emotional dysfunctions. Spiritual life represents a refuge from the daily lives agitation felt due to the accelerated technological progress impact on society. An ideal environment for inner peace regeneration is the church. Deficient acoustics caused by different design factors could have a negative effect on speech intelligibility with impact on the socio-emotional participation and inner communication of the church members. This paper presents an acoustic study of a church located in Cluj-Napoca municipality, Romania. The reverberation time, considered the most important criteria used in the acoustic field appreciation, was determined by two methods: theoretical and acoustic measurements. The obtained results were compared with the norms recommended admissible values. Based on the acoustic field evaluation, a rehabilitation solution which takes into account the interior design of the audition hall was proposed.