allowable times for mowing lawns. Building designs would normally include an acoustic consultant’s report, and this report would be included into the architect’s design and the acoustic consultant is commissioned to continue during the construction to certify the building has met the codes. The fact that the codes are not changing as fast as the high-power ratings of the average home stereo is one of the main causes of many problems, but the bigger problem is that of perception of sound. If I made a comment that one sound is 5dB less than another, many would have no idea how much difference that is, and a lot would think that it is not much. But if I said in the same sentence that to get one room 5dB less noisy than another, it would cost nearly twice as much to build, you would start to take a bit more notice of the actual amount of noise that is around. City living, by its very nature can be as much as 20dB louder than its suburban counterparts. An example is my home in Australia is 45dB quieter than my Apartment in JBR Sadaf 7. But does this necessarily mean that the noise level in a bedroom in an apartment say on level 15 of a beach tower should be 20dB louder than a bedroom in The Springs? No, according to the average of the rest of the world standards, it should not
be, and because of those guidelines it should achieve the “required ratings” as set by the relevant codes, or in some cases, the additional “value added” requirements as set by the designers or developers if they are setting a standard of higher than normal quality. The fact is that most suburbs are inherently quieter, and hence the noise levels that are inside houses in these areas are much quieter is a factor to take into consideration. But I challenge that even the most astute acoustic design in the noisiest part of town won’t cost a small fortune to implement if it is done correctly. I remember moving from my house in Melbourne a few years ago to an apartment in JBR. The first year, the construction noise in the middle of the night was awful and, then, there was the 2 to 4am “The Walk” car show horn blowing and the fireworks in the wee small hours and the neighbours in the units next door banging about at their leisure. I can hear people say, “You chose to live there.” And with this I absolutely agree. But if I responded with, “I also lived in New York for a time in a second floor apartment on East 27th Street and it was 25dB quieter than my 15th floor apartment in Dubai, then it may help to show that while the UAE is growing very quickly, it is also a little alarming at how noisy it has become in reference to other very busy cities in the world. This same reason, I am sure, will apply to many people who either have had family and now want to move to the city to get the views or take the traffic jams out of the way of their day-to-day life experience, or those that simply need to get into the housing market by buying “off the plan”. And there are, of course, those who want to be involved in a community lifestyle that
The currenT uAe regulATIOns, In sO FAr As AcOusTIcs Is cOncerned, hAve The lOwesT level OF wAll IsOlATIOn In Any OF The develOped cOunTrIes only apartment living can deliver, and want to share in the spirit of the dream, albeit 2013-style, with inner city living. But this lifestyle is going to become the way of life for many more people in the future. I discovered early that the more I stressed about the noise, the worse the noise got, and hence conformed to my knowledge of psychoacoustics. So I decided that it would be best to just relax and view the experience from the framework of “I don’t have to tackle traffic jams in the morning; I don’t have to worry about getting in my car to go to the shops or out for coffee or dinner as the local area has a fantastic lifestyle.” So, all of these things combined gave me a reason to be there that outweighs the desire to have a perfectly quiet sleep, and besides, ear plugs work a treat. So, back to our friend who can hear everything that goes on in the apartments around him, and to the challenge of what can acoustics do to help. And here it must be noted that
the current UAE regulations, in so far as acoustics is concerned, have the lowest level of wall isolation in any of the developed countries, meaning that dividing walls between apartments are only generally built by conscientious architects to a mixture of Australian, UK and American standards, but are not mandatory. Basically, the standard that is offered up is that to which the acoustics consultant on the project is used to specifying, but what gets built is based on cost and speed alone. These International standards don’t relate specifically to the UAE, and this is where more work should be done and promoted strongly, and they at minimum, should be administered on site and confirmed. What can be done to alleviate the problems? There isn’t going to be a code that says the street must not be used by traffic between the hours of x and y. There isn’t a code that says your neighbour must be in bed and fast asleep by 10pm, and there are certainly no current codes that mention anything about sound transmission isolation. Although there are Federal guides and decrees to the amount of noise that can be made at certain times, having these codes enforced is something that just isn’t done. So, I suggest that having codes that are specific and enforceable may help to curb the way for the protection of the future generation of Emiratis, and this can only be a good thing. A Middle East Acoustic Standard should be developed that adopts one or more of the options outlined below. But before these are implemented, a series of numbers in a rating system needs to be identified that is Middle East specific. The rating system must include all factors on the built form and be focused on the amenity
October 2013
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