The Institute of Acoustics (IOA) London Branch held its first meeting of the year at London South Bank University (LBSU) on 17th January 2024. Two of the best 2022-23 IOA Diploma student projects at LSBU were shortlisted to present their final projects as part of the annual NTI-Audio sponsored best final project award competition. The students shortlisted and their topics were: Rebecca Page on Impact Noise and Vibration Induced by Deadlifts and Rhiannon Hawkins on Acoustic design of heritage school buildings

Sponsor of the award  NTI-Audio UK Managing director Charles Greene and LSBU IOA Diploma course director Dr Luis Gomez-Agustina presented the award to the joyous winner: Rebecca Page. 

This year’s event has marked the sixth anniversary of this successful award. The hybrid meeting was well attended by a mix of senior consultants, academics, acoustics students and alumni. In the presentation speech, Charles mentioned the consistent high quality of the projects entered to this award r

On 07 November 2023 Sound Art undergraduate students from the London College of Communications (University of Arts London) attended a seminar on Acoustics delivered by Dr Luis Gomez-Agustina. The students and their course leader were delighted by the experiential learning and auditory demonstrations taken place at different locations of the LSBU Acoustics Laboratory.

With this seminar we hope that both institutions and their sound related courses become better known to each other.

Patrick Spiers, student of the 2022-23 MSc in Environmental and Architectural Acoustics at London South Bank University (LSBU) has been awarded the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) Robert Bradford student medal. The Robert Bradford Newman Student Medal for Merit in Architectural Acoustics, recognizes excellence in the study of acoustics and its application to architecture. The scheme honours outstanding students at schools of architecture and architectural engineering throughout the world. The judging panel based their decision on Patrick’s MSc Final research project dissertation. He was presented the medal on the day of his MSc graduation, 01 Nov 2023, by the final project supervisor and current course leader Dr Luis Gomez-Agustina and the Associate Dean for Student experience Dr Alex Paurine. Many congratulations Patrick!

An article has been recently published on Acoustics, a high quality peer-reviewed scientific journal by the reputed Open Access publisher MDPI. 

The article is entitled Non-special loudspeakers as speech test sources in natural acoustics speech intelligibility investigations and is freely accessible from the journal website and from this link https://www.mdpi.com/2624-599X/5/3/38.

It has been authored by Dr Luis Gomez-Agustina and co-authored by Dr Haydar Aygun and Ms Liji Suseela Thankom Mohan. The work has attracted 137 views within 24h since publication; likely due to its real-world application in the concerned industry. The authors expect that the novel findings of this study will inform practitioners on the suitability of affordable loudspeakers when standardized special test loudspeakers are not available. We hope you enjoy the read.

Colin Alden, student of the 2021-22 MSc in Environmental and Architectural Acoustics at LSBU has recently won the prestigious Acoustical Society of America R. B. Newman student medal. The program honors outstanding students at schools of architecture and architectural engineering throughout the world.

Colin’s final project dissertation was supervised by Dr Luis Gomez-Agustina and was entitled “A study on sound propagation from rifle muzzle devices”.

The research work investigated for the first time the sound propagation and directivity characteristics from modern rifle muzzles. It was selected by the prize panel for having demonstrated excellence in this discipline and in the application of acoustical design principles in the course of their study. Colin and Luis are preparing a journal article based on the research with plans to be published in mid 2023.

On 23rd of September 2022, a panel of representatives of the Institute of Acoustics (IOA), visited LSBU  to complete re-accreditation on the IOA Diploma of Acoustics and Noise Control and Certificate of Competence of Environmental Noise measurements  (CCENM) courses. The CCENM courses have been run by The School of The Built Environment and Architecture since 2013.

The director for those courses at LSBU, Dr Luis Gomez-Agustina, organised and led the visit with the assistance of the teaching team and School of BEA management. The panel were highly satisfied with the overall running of the courses.

We have recently received the confirmation that LSBU has gained re-accreditation to run those two prestigious courses for another 5 years. This is the third time that LSBU is accredited led by the courses’ owner. Well done Luis and the teaching team on a job well done!

On 20 July 2021 a novel acoustics apprenticeship course (level 4) was validated at LSBU. This course implements the first ever apprenticeship in acoustics created in the UK. Its academic development was halted in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, in April 2021 progress resumed with the apprenticeship academic lead Dr Luis Gomez-Agustina, and the rest of the academic team working hard to have the course validated in time before recruitment can commence in July 2021. The course residing at our School of BEA, is planned to start in September 2021. LSBU will be the first UK academic institution to run an acoustics apprenticeship course. Also, LSBU will be the only institution to run it in the next academic year 2021-22. Well done for this achievement and best wishes for the future of the course.

The Chartered Institute of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) has recently approved a research funding application to support a part time PhD research program being undertaken at the BEA Acoustics Research Group.

The research aims to characterise the acoustics properties of alternative residential ventilation ducts.

The funding application written by PhD student Suzana Zekic and PhD director of studies Dr Luis Gomez-Agustina requested financial support to facilitate innovation in the research methods, ensure quality and wide applicability of the project outcomes. This grant further confirms the perceived value of the project and strengthens the link between CIBSE and the School of BEA.

A ventilation test rig designed to measure the acoustic characteristics of alternative ducts has arrived at the School of BEA Acoustics Lab. It has been kindly supplied by Imtech, the main partner and the sponsor company  of an ongoing industry collaborative PhD research with LSBU.

The rig will become the test bed for the development of innovative test procedures and the production of novel acoustic data for plastic and polystyrene ventilation ducts.

PhD director of studies Dr Luis Gomez-Agustina and PhD student Suzana Zekic inspected the rig and were very satisfied with the quality of components and final assembly.

The design, provision and installation of the rig marks the achievement of a fundamental milestone in the progress of this successful PhD research and reflects well on the high-quality research activities of our Centre.  

The Institute of Acoustics (IOA, the UK professional body for the multidisciplinary field of acoustics) have recently approved to instate a new award named after the late Dr Bob Peters, in recognition to his outstanding service to acoustics education and his long standing commitment to teaching and student success in the UK.

Dr Peters was honorary fellow member of the IOA and for 20 years was part of the School of BEA Acoustics Group teaching staff, contributing greatly to the good standing on acoustics education that the group holds.

The award was conceived and proposed by Dr Luis Gomez-Agustina who is a former student of Dr Bob Peters.

Dr Peters advised on research projects and also acted as internal PhD examiner for various PhD students at LSBU including Luis.

This will be the first award in the UK to recognize and celebrate excellence in acoustics teaching and education.  

The first nominations will be considered this autumn 2021 for 2022. The award will be biannual and for a singl

Congratulations to Dr Luis Gomez-Agustina who has become an external examiner of the Masters programme in Applied Acoustics at University of Derby (UK). Dr Gomez-Agustina was invited to apply for the position, as he is known to the University of Derby Acoustics team from the courses re-accreditation carried out by the Institute of Acoustics (IOA) in 2019, in which he was co-lead of the accreditation panel.

This appointment will provide an opportunity to learn from good practice implemented at other leading universities. The new role will also help to strengthen the links between LSBU and the University of Derby and stimulate future teaching, enterprise and research collaborations.

The Association of Noise Consultants (ANC) has recently announced the best IOA Diploma final project Prize winner for the 2028-19 cohort. The winner is LSBU 2018-19 Diploma ex-student Paul Roberts. Paul’s final project was entitled Sound Propagation from Lightwells.

The awards promote and recognise excellence among UK acoustic consultants and look for examples of work that displays innovation, and originality in acoustic design or approach to a particular project.

The well deserved prize consists of a book of choice, sum of cash prize and an invitation to attend and present at the ANC national award ceremony. The project supervisor Dr Luis Gomez-Agustina and the IOA Diploma committee are delighted for Paul’s achievement. Congratulations to Paul, on behalf of the School of BEA.

In January 2017 the London Borough of Wandsworth and the Acoustics Group of London South Bank University agreed to collaborate on a project to quantify and assess the noise emissions generated by the London Heliport operation. This heliport is located by the river Thames in Battersea, in the vicinity of dense high rise and affluent housing. The project also included a study of the subjective response and impact of the noise emissions on the health and well-being of local residents. The project was undertaken by Prof Stephen Dance and Dr Luis Gomez-Agustina and run for 6 months over the Spring/Summer of 2017. The work was reported to the London Heliport Consultative Group (LHCG), of which Steve and Luis are members.

The subjective and objective results showed a high incidence on a large number of affected residents. The findings suggested that the London Heliport is a danger to health with medium risk of long term health effects (hyper tension, higher cortisol levels, and the possible o

A new working group has been formed to assist the development of new test methods to determine acoustic properties of ventilation ducts. The first meeting took place in December 2019 at the Chartered Institute of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) Headquarters. 
The working group has been created by Dr Luis Gomez-Agustina, LSBU PhD candidate and Imtech engineer Suzana Zekic and the CIBSE head of research Dr Anastasia Mylona. 
The group is formed at present by ten industry experts in building services noise and mechanical ventilation senior engineers. Some additional prominent consultants have also expressed interest in joining the group. 
The first meeting was very well attended and was led by Luis and Suzana to a highly productive consultative session. It set the clear basis for a sustained and well-coordinated effort. It was encouraging to see the level of interest and engagement in the research work at hand. Our thanks go to all the group members who attended, those who have recently

On 4 February 2020 “The Book of Acoustics” published by BAUX was presented in Stockholm (Sweden). It was created in collaboration with leading acousticians, neuroscientists and designers.

The Book of Acoustics explores the science of sound and provides guidance for designing with acoustics. Complete with facts, figures, diagrams and expert insight, it is the ideal starting point for architectural and interior design projects and sheds light on the interplay between engineering and aesthetics.

Dr Luis Gomez-Agustina of the School of BEA, was part of the panel of experts who contributed and feature in several chapters of the book. The launch of the book so far has been a complete success. It has been written about in Forbes, Interior Design, and Architectural Digest. Due to high demand it will become commercially available online soon.

We hope you enjoy the book!

The School of BEA Acoustics post graduate students and Architecture students from the famous Architectural Association (AA) in London, recently attended a series of  interdisciplinary workshops, research presentations, seminars and tours organised at both institutions. 

The Architectural Association School of Architecture is the oldest independent school of architecture in the UK and one of the most prestigious and competitive in the world. Its wide-ranging programme of exhibitions, lectures, symposia and publications have given it a central position in global discussions and developments within contemporary architectural culture.

The educational exchange and collaborative activities took place on 20 February and 27 February 2020 and aimed to raise student awareness of each others’ disciplines,  promote research collaboration and encourage the exchange of knowledge, perspectives,  ideas and insights relevant in the architectural design process.  

This educational exercise has been set