The new building will celebrate the reunion of BAM and PFA in a single cultural site. The building will serve two forms of spectatorship: film audiences that are collected and static in a controlled event and art audiences that are mobile and dispersed with an unregulated pace and path. The building will be both diurnal and nocturnal. While celebrating this dual identity, the shared infrastructure of lobby, café, event space and bookstore will ensure that populations are conjoined. These in-between spaces will provide the opportunity for various constituencies to expand their interests, even if by chance.

In a city known for its outstanding music, JaffeHolden consulted on building and exhibition acoustical and audio design for this $30 million facility devoted to the history of country music. Filled with memorabilia and enlivened by multimedia exhibits, the museum incorporates galleries, theaters, and two atrium spaces with special acoustic treatments and custom audio systems.

Unique among museums, the Experience Music Project is devoted to creativity and innovation in American popular music. JaffeHolden’s acoustical designers responded to a multitude of technical challenges to ensure that EMP’s interactive exhibits and performance spaces afford visitors a rich, high-fidelity soundscape. In the museum’s Sound Lab—a hands-on gallery where museum-goers make music like the professionals—visitors can play at concert levels without significant bleed to adjacent platforms.

A unique structure located on the bank of the Boston Harbor, the new Institute of Contemporary Art is an eye catcher with its dramatic cantilevered form. Designed by architects Diller, Scofido + Renfro the new ICA building enfolds over 65,000 square feet of space dedicated exclusively to acquiring and exhibiting contemporary art. As part of this mantra, the new ICA has expanded it’s offerings in the performing arts and film genres. An acoustical challenge with two glass walls, fixed and adjustable acoustic systems were integrated into the Theater for sound quality control.

The NASCAR Hall of Fame opened in the spring of 2010 and features JaffeHolden designed audio and video systems for the High Octane Theater, featuring a sixty-five foot curved screen, three digital projectors using blend edge technology and a surround sound system capable of reproducing the feel of NASCAR racing.  The museum also features a fifty foot digital billboard with a line array speaker system inside the Great Hall, a sixty foot digital billboard with outdoor concert style audio systems in the courtyard, two smaller theaters with left, right center audio systems and the Hall of Honor with in the round projection using digital projectors with blend technology.  Interactive technology utilizing RFI card readers, video and audio are the backbone of most exhibits.

The National Constitution Center is a striking modern addition to historic downtown Philadelphia, and emphasizes the museum’s message about the contemporary relevance of the Constitution. Visitors first encounter the multimedia program “Freedom Rising” in the Kimmel Theater, which features a state-of-the-art audio system creating stereo imaging and surround effects throughout a 360-degree environment. The main exhibit gallery, The American Experience, utilizes more than 100 media elements to develop the themes contained in the Constitution’s preamble. Sound absorptive finish materials and specialty audio components integrated into many of the exhibit structures tailor the experience of each individual exhibit and maintain a balanced overall gallery soundscape.

As the final building to be constructed on the National Mall in Washington, the National Museum of the American Indian embodies the aesthetic and cultural beliefs of the native peoples of North and South America. The circular form, considered sacred by the American Indians, presented numerous challenges to the acoustic and audio design within the 300-seat main theater, 120-seat outdoor performance space, preparation theater, and Potomac atrium. The three permanent exhibit galleries, centered around the themes of “Our Universes,” “Our Lives,” and “Our Peoples,” feature customized audio devices to immerse visitors in the sounds of native language, storytelling, song, dance, and powwow.

The National World War II & D-Day Museum project constitutes a major expansion of the existing facility whose exhibits encompass the June 6,1944 invasion of Normandy, the Home Front during WWII, and the D-Day Invasions in the Pacific. The new multi-building facility designed by Voorsanger & Associates architects and Gallagher and Associates exhibit designers includes a large format Exhibition Theater, a USO-type performance space and sound exhibit pavilions. The buildings and overhead canopy enclose an outdoor Parade Ground where events and performances will take place. JaffeHolden provided architectural acoustic design for the base building and exhibits and facility-wide audiovisual systems for the buildings and Parade Ground.

This visitor’s center is the only one dedicated to the Woodstock festival that defi ned a generation. Audio and sound are critical to the Woodstock experience and the Gerry Foundation demanded faithful sound reproduction at realistic levels, in a compact museum footprint. Acoustic treatments buffered and baffled sound to minimize sound bleed between high intensity music experiences.

The Sports Museum of America, is unique in that it combines all sports under one roof, including baseball, hockey, golf, swimming, tennis, soccer, basketball, auto racing, football, cycling, extreme games…even lacrosse, bowling and yachting. Every one of the nineteen galleries, and many of the exhibits which co-exist within each gallery, contains one or more A/V programs, all in close proximity to one another, which posed myriad acoustic design challenges.

Currently under construction, this 580,000 square foot facility will be the home of exhibits, theaters, gift shops and more. Serving as the new gateway to the Capitol Building, JaffeHolden is designing the Audio, Visual and Control Systems for the Visitor’s Center exhibits, virtual theaters, and computer interactives. With a much anticipated opening in 2007, these systems will be seen and heard by as many as 18,000 people per day.

Sensitive to the museum’s solemn, contemplative character, JaffeHolden implemented strategies to achieve an extraordinarily high degree of sound control and speech intelligibility. The museum’s 200- seat film theater is acoustically treated for multi-track Dolby sound; the acoustic performance of its 500-seat, octagonal auditorium (shown here) is enhanced by a glass and steel sound canopy. Individual exhibits—some presenting testimony of survivors and witnesses—are designed to enhance voice clarity and to block sound from adjacent spaces.