National Museum of the America Indian
Washington, DC

DESCRIPTION
The National Museum of the American Indian is a living memorial to the native inhabitants of the Americas. The main theater consists of vertical wood paneling surrounding the 322 seat circular theater, evoking a dense hard wood forest, and above a dark blue ceiling twinkle with constellations. Top photo above is a front view and the lower photo is a rear view. Like many of the space, the auditorium engages all of the senses. The main theater is a storytelling vehicle; a clearing in the forest under the night sky. Indeed, this space in the round, with its vertical textured and detailed wood walls conjures up a pine forest, and the midnight blue acoustical ceiling, replete with twinkling ”stars”, completes the effect. A surrounding lateral aisle allows actors into the audience, a necessary component of many American Indian performances.

Acoustician Steve Haas, working with Jaffe Holden Acoustics, Norwalk, CT was concerned that the circular room, shown in the RPG half plan model, the top right illustration, would provide focusing problem and Damyanti Radheshwar from Polshek Partnership and the design team devised an undulating and tilting facade on the circular walls, which was very rough and diffusive in the rear and gradually became reflective next to the projection screen. The design team of Haas and Radheshwar asked RPG to acoustically model the topology of the wood paneling to provide uniform sound diffusion and minimize focusing. RPG utilized its proprietary Shape Optimizer software to optimize the undulating pattern and provide uniform scattering.

The installation used RPG’s Flutter Free planks interspersed with flat wooden planks, the depth and positioning of each being optimally determined by the Shape Optimizer. The proposed arrangement by Polshek Partnership was evaluated and optimized. The final design of a repeating Diffractal section is shown in the lower right illustration.

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