Optimizing Museum Acoustics: How Absorption Magnitude and Surface Location of Finishing Materials Influence Acoustic Performance

The architecture of contemporary museums often emphasizes visual aesthetics, such as large volumes, open-plan layouts, and highly reflective finishes, resulting in acoustic challenges, such as excessive reverberation, poor speech intelligibility, elevated background noise, and reduced privacy. This study quantified the impact of surface—specific absorption treatments on acoustic metrics across eight gallery spaces. Room impulse responses calibrated virtual models, which simulated nine absorption scenarios (low, medium, and high on ceilings, floors, and walls) and evaluated reverberation time (T20), speech transmission index (STI), clarity (C50), distraction distance (rD), Spatial Decay Rate of Speech (D2,S), and Speech Level at 4 m (Lp,A,S,4m). The results indicate that going from concrete to a wooden floor yields the most rapid T20 reductions (up to −1.75 s), ceiling treatments deliver the greatest STI and C50 gains (e.g., STI increases of +0.16), and high-absorption walls maximize privacy metrics (D2,S and Lp,A,S,4m). A linear regression model further predicted the STI from T20, total absorption (Sabins), and room volume, with an 84.9% conditional R2, enabling ±0.03 accuracy without specialized testing. These findings provide empirically derived, surface-specific “first-move” guidelines for architects and acousticians, underscoring the necessity of integrating acoustics early in museum design to balance auditory and visual objectives and enhance the visitor experience.