A wooden acoustic shell for open-air chamber music concert

This paper presents the acoustic design process of an acoustic shell for open-air Chamber Music concert, which we refer to as Resonant String Shell (ReS). Each and every part of the shell is made of timber and reversible joints with no glue, thus allowing a simple manufacturing, a sustainable process and a cost effective structure. A sophisticated digital form finding process lays behind such a technologic simplification. It is performed through parametric modelling tools and a multi-objective optimisation algorithm. Geometrical acoustical parameters, such as the number of second-order reflections, are first analysed through image sources technique, and then the Pareto-front of the most performing solutions is displayed. The chosen results are then sent to a more complete acoustical analysis software. Measurements performed on-site demonstrate the quality of the optimization process for both audience and musicians.