Acoustic outcome of refurbishing an accommodation building toward LEED and WELL certifications: guidelines for effective interventions prioritization

In the recent years occupant comfort is becoming a prerogative in the building sector. This has led to the spread of rating systems to certificate the environmental performance of buildings and encourage building owners and operators to implement sustainable design, construction, and operations practices as LEED and WELL. In the framework of various criteria of these certification programs, including energy efficiency, water conservation, indoor environmental quality, materials selection, and sustainable site development, acoustic performance is increasing its relevance. In the present work the case study of an accommodation building subject to refurbishment is used to qualify the spaces according to the LEED and WELL certifications and assess the impact of planned interventions on parameters and credits of these protocols. Several simulations will be carried out on the building to evaluate background and impact noise, sound transmission and reverberation time pre and post renovation. The procedure here detailed is not limited to the identification of building areas that need to be acoustically improved, but also aims to identify actions which would produce the greatest effect. Moreover the work proposes a scoring system to highlight areas or elements for which interventions are priority, based on room use and occupancy.