Kristen Murphy
Sustainability Lead
In 2014, the City of Boston created a housing initiative to encourage universities to develop and improve campus housing, which in turn will free up city housing for those in the workforce.
Motivated by this, Northeastern University partnered with American Campus Communities to create LightView Apartments, the first developer-led, equity-financed student housing project in the city. The project was led by architect of record, Cube 3 Studio, in partnership with design architect Elkus Manfredi. Acentech provided acoustics consulting for this 310,000 SF project.
The building complex consists of three separate structures – a low-rise, 8-story component on Columbus Avenue; a mid-rise, 16-story component on Coventry Street; and a 20-story high rise on Burke Street. LightView Apartments creates housing for a total of 825 students in 207 apartment-style spaces. The complex also consists of 12,000 sf of amenity and shared spaces including several lounges, a fitness center, study hub, and laundry room.
Acentech’s acoustics consultants provided recommendations to help ensure LightView Apartments functioned as intended. We consulted on sound isolation for wall and ceiling systems ensuring proper noise separation between living units, ground floor activity spaces and living spaces, and living units and roof mounted HVAC equipment.
We also provided recommendations for fitness room flooring including sound and vibration isolation and strategic placement of the noisiest equipment. We consulted on room acoustics for the public spaces to help encourage comfortable-sounding gathering places. We finally consulted on interior and exterior mechanical noise control, keeping the background noise quiet and ensuring the complex met external noise compliance, based on City of Boston ordinance, guaranteeing the LightView Apartments would be good neighbors for years to come.
