Project Type: Multi Family, Mixed Use, Senior Living

Maris Grove
Senior Living Community
Ashburn, VA
Architect: Marks Thomas Architects

Nestled in a beautiful and historic region of southeastern Pennsylvania, Maris Grove is a desirable senior living community with a full complement of amenities, clubs, activities, and services. The community is close to a number of historical points of interest as well as the cities of Philadelphia, PA and Wilmington, DE. The 82-acre campus features more than 160 apartment-style homes with a variety of different floor plans to choose from, all housed in individual multi-purpose residence buildings that also include amenities such as restaurants, media rooms, lounges, and activity centers. In applications where the environment is home to a combination of very different functions by nature, acoustics and sound control are vital to the enjoyment and comfort of the inhabitants.

Our involvement with Maris Grove was broken out into separate phases based on the developing concerns about noise infiltration into different areas of some of the buildings. We were brought on initially to analyze and provide solutions to unacceptable sound levels being created by some hydraulic elevators affecting various locations within one of the existing residence buildings. Our services included a site visit to observe and analyze the existing construction and to acquire acoustical measurements. We tabulated and reported our findings, and provided a comprehensive and detailed summary of recommended solutions for mitigating the sound propagation issues.

The second phase of our involvement started much earlier. We were brought in to work with the architect to analyze and develop a design plan for preventing sound mitigation between public spaces and residences, from mechanical rooms into living quarters, and to reduce sound transmission from the theater to its adjacencies. Our recommendations were adopted in the construction and anticipated results were tested throughout the construction progress of the building. We performed testing on site and measured the sound transmission levels to confirm that our solutions were working to control noise between spaces. In this case, we encountered some deficiencies which we were able to address in the construction framing stage. Our in-person visits and investigations into the walls and ceilings were an important part of making this project a success and ensuring that the new building will perform acoustically as promised.