This new building houses classrooms, offices, a four-story atrium, an open collaboration area and tailored laboratory space for robotic technologies.

The atrium was designed to be used as a collaborative and social space for students, hosting special events and informal presentations. As such, the acoustics were designed to prevent excessive background sound build-up and improve speech intelligibility for listeners.

Additionally, the atrium and the atrium’s sound reinforcement audio system was modeled in EASE in order to assist with optimizing audio system coverage and maximizing audio system speech intelligibility. EASE modelling was performed to assess both the loudspeaker scheme and the impact that the atrium’s acoustical environment would have on the loudspeaker performance.

Classrooms that open onto the atrium required additional sound isolation design for the borrowed lites and doors so that events would not disrupt learning. A glass-walled conference room with superb views of the surrounding area received acoustical treatment to reduce unwanted reverberation.

The fourth floor contains a machine shop area that donor and naming-rights partner Ford Motor Company would be leasing. To reduce structure-borne sound transmission from the machine shop to the conference and collaborative areas on the level below, a floating floor was specified for the entire machining area.

University of Michigan
Ford Motor Company Robotics Building
Ann Arbor, Michigan