Booksology Straightforward, inviting and upbeat, ‘Acoustic Essentials for Architects’ is an excellent resource and reference guide.
New York, NY (March 27, 2026)—If you’ve ever tried to explain acoustics to someone with no background or real interest in the topic, you’ve probably watched their eyes glaze over as you explain concepts like delay, reverberation and first-order reflections. That’s irritating but (sort of) forgivable if you’re talking to family and friends, but it’s not acceptable if you’re speaking with architects. As the creators of spaces where people live, work and entertain, they of all people should have a vested interest in understanding basic acoustical concepts, if only so they can make spaces sound better.
In many cases, however, you can’t really blame them for their lack of understanding—often architecture schools only fleetingly address acoustical properties and issues, and there aren’t many accessible resources that architects, whether students or professionals, can turn to outside of actual acousticians and consultants.
Stepping in to fill that void is Michael Fay’s new book, the appropriately titled Acoustic Essentials for Architects (J. Ross Publishing; $59,95). The tome provides a focused overview on acoustics that demystifies the subject, explaining different specific topics, problems, likely causes and possible solutions that its audience—designers, engineers and the like—may run into in the course of their work.
While complex concepts are addressed, they’re explained in straightforward, everyday language—case in point, the chapter entitled “Where Does All The Unused Sound Go?” There’s a fair amount of handholding, but the book never talks down to its readers, even as it gets increasingly complex, explaining the math and reasoning behind many of the topics addressed.
Throughout the book, readers are introduced to the vocabulary of acoustics so that they can express what they’re hoping to achieve with terms more specific than “good sound.” Topics addressed include psychoacoustics; discussions of large- and small-room acoustics; the pros and cons of treating sound with reflection, absorption and diffusion; room geometry issues; modern acoustic materials and some of their applications; and lots more.
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The book even tempers expectations with the chapter “Acoustical Pragmatism,” which reminds readers that, “As much as we may want it to be, architectural acoustics is not an exact discipline,” and that there will be compromises along the way as priorities (budgets, for example) and goals change throughout the length of a project.
Michael Fay writes from experience, having spent more than 45 years in professional AV and acoustical systems design, tackling systems engineering and integration. Clearly drawing on his background (and likely having had to explain many of the book’s concepts to lay people), Fay has a knack for clear, concise writing that nonetheless is passionate when it needs to be, like when he makes his case that architects should consider acoustics to be a crucial design element of every project from the start, not something to be addressed after the fact.
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Straightforward, inviting and upbeat, Acoustic Essentials for Architects is an excellent resource and reference guide with plenty to offer its readers, whether they’re entering the field as students or are established architects who need a quick brush-up on specific concepts and language. Augmented with plenty of full-color illustrations, charts and an optimistic foreword by industry legend Sam Berkow of SIA Acoustics, this book on acoustic essentials is, itself, essential, too.
