Project Type: Government

North Philadelphia Law Center
Philadelphia, PA
Architect: Atkin Olshin Schade Architects

This project originated from the need to provide an up to date professional legal services center to an underserved community in North Philadelphia. The client; Community Legal Services, represents lower-income residents of the local neighborhood in civil legal matters. They had outgrown their existing facility in the same neighborhood and were eager to work with the design team on a new space that would enhance the neighborhood, provide greater accessibility, and provide a better experience for the attorneys and clients.

Metropolitan Acoustics was commissioned to review finishes and partial height barriers and provide design recommendations for reducing the noise attenuation between spaces for this busy office environment. We reviewed the conference rooms and lunch room acoustics and provided recommendations to isolate these spaces from the open office areas as well. In addition to these efforts, which were mainly focused on issues of speech privacy, we also performed analysis and testing of the room acoustics, acoustical isolation, and mechanical system noise control in various rooms in the new building and provided summary recommendations for achieving the desired levels of sound control.

This was a rewarding and fulfilling project in many ways. The client is providing the community with an important service and they chose to remain in the neighborhood in which they can best serve their customers. The nature of their business- a legal center, meant that speech privacy and sound isolation were of utmost importance, and our services were given the required level of attention and scrutiny necessary in this type of application. Lastly, the results were as promised. The sound attenuation and mechanical systems noise isolation goals were achieved and the client is able to better serve their community because of the attention paid to these aspects of the design.