A preeminent acoustics researcher nominated first female president of the Institute of Acoustics in 2012, Bridget Shield earned her academic credentials at Birmingham University in the UK, going on to serve as Professor of Acoustics at London South Bank University from 1986 until her 2014 retirement. Perhaps best known for her findings regarding the effects of noise on children and their learning abilities, the award-winning engineer expressed concerns that British architects were excessively focused on aesthetics—while overlooking factors necessary for healthy learning environments—in their designs of much-needed new schools.

“The spacious, light-filled palaces going up under the government’s multi-billion pound school building bonanza […] look wonderful,” Shield writes, “and, with their lack of dark corners, make pupils feel safe. But how well can pupils hear inside these educational glasshouses?”

New as well as older schools often feature overly reverberant and/or noisy classrooms in which children struggle to hear while teachers struggle to be heard. Current architectural trends (if you’ll pardon the word choice) amplify the problem, incorporating as they do large, open spaces as well as hard reflective surfaces like glass and steel. “These are precisely the types of material that make for echoing, noisy spaces,” Shield explains, noting detrimental effects including compromised working memory (and consequently, scholastic performance) in children, as well as voice and throat problems among teachers.

The techniques for reducing reverberation and noise in schools are well known, Shield states in a 2008 article. They include:

• Careful choice of the site, layout and design of school buildings to ensure noise sensitive rooms such as classrooms are not adjacent to busy roads or railways.
• Adequate sound insulation to reduce the transmission of noise from outside to inside, and between classrooms.
• Adequate amount of acoustic absorption on ceilings and corridors, and carpets or other resilient floor coverings to reduce reverberation.
• Use of quiet building services such as ventilation, heating and lighting.