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Case Study

Kelowna Police Services Building

Year Completed

2017

Capital Cost

$48M

Total Size

173k sqft.

About This Project

Home to over 120,000 residents and counting, Kelowna is the largest city in BC’s Interior. Until 2017, it was served by a police station built in 1962, when the city had fewer than 15,000 people. For the city’s busy police force, space was tight.

That all changed with the opening of the City of Kelowna Police Services Building, which brings together several key departments, once scattered across three satellite locations, and provides enough workspace for 380 officers, support staff, and volunteers. The building features modern facilities for evidence, identification, forensics, and records, as well as a laboratory and secure cell block. It’s designed to meet the needs of the growing city for the next half century and beyond.

Scope of services

Working with the developer, Bird Construction, and architect, Kasian, BKL consulted on the building’s acoustics. BKL’s goal was to ensure that acoustical conditions within the building would be ideal for police work. This included providing sufficiently sound-isolated spaces for privacy and low-reverberant conditions for speech intelligibility, as well as assessing interior and exterior noise levels of the building’s mechanical systems to provide low background noise conditions.

Interior Acoustics

To maintain speech privacy, BKL reviewed and developed strategies for separating wall and floor assemblies to make sure sound was adequately isolated between adjacencies. This was particularly necessary for interview rooms, secure rooms, and the private offices of senior staff. The walls and floor assemblies were supplemented by door and interior glazing selections to maintain a contemporary and acoustically commensurate design.

The control of reverberant sound was an important part of the services provided by BKL as the clear and necessary understanding of speech is critical to everyday police work. BKL developed appropriate room finishes and sizes to provide excellent conditions for understanding speech.

Lastly, BKL reviewed the layout plans and specifications for the mechanical and air handling systems selected by the designers, and, using a software model, predicted how HVAC noise would sound throughout the building. BKL’s team compared its findings against project-specific criteria, which included detailed thresholds for different types of rooms. For example, interview rooms required lower background noise levels than office space and meeting rooms.

The acoustical team highlighted which rooms would experience higher HVAC noise and shared its findings in a detailed letter that also outlined its recommendations for unit selection and noise mitigation. Examples of mitigation included installing silencers for either air supply or return, and upgrading acoustical duct lining.

Exterior Noise

BKL also predicted exterior noise levels from mechanical systems to make sure they met the city’s noise bylaw. Since Kelowna’s noise bylaw is qualitative and contains no numerical criteria, BKL’s team drew upon other relevant municipal standards to establish specific thresholds. After analyzing the predicted noise emitted from the roof top units, BKL recommended an optimized design for noise mitigation, including barriers and silencers to protect the acoustical amenity of the surrounding neighbourhood.

Project benefits

The building’s well-designed room acoustics make its interior spaces effective, benefitting the officers who work in these spaces and the people they serve. By assessing external noise and making recommendations to control it, BKL ensured that Kelowna’s new police station not only fits the aesthetic of its surroundings but also avoids introducing negative noise impacts on the neighbourhood. These factors will surely contribute to the long-term success of this facility.

To learn more about this project or other secure facilities BKL has consulted on, contact us today.

The People Behind Our Work

Our Technical Leads

  • Paul Marks
    Paul Marks

    M.Sc., MIOA

    Vice President, Project Delivery

    Paul Marks

    Paul Marks, M.Sc., MIOA

    Vice President, Project Delivery

    Paul Marks joined BKL in 2013. He is a full corporate member of the UK Institute of Acoustics and the Canadian Acoustical Association. He has over 20 years’ experience in the measurement, analysis, and assessment of noise, vibration, and acoustical matters and is a former member of the technical advisory team working with the UK government on noise and statutory nuisance issues. During this time, Paul has undertaken major projects within Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

    He has experience in a wide range of multi-disciplinary environmental assessment projects including highway, rail, and air transportation infrastructure, mixed-use and brownfield regeneration schemes, renewable energy facilities, and power generation plants.

    Paul also has experience in a broad range of building and architectural noise assessment projects including the design of residential, office, educational, and commercial buildings. He has also undertaken acoustical studies for major infrastructure developments including work in the design of appropriate sound-fields for room-spaces in multi-occupancy buildings, including atriums and performance spaces. His work regularly involves close liaison with other acoustical engineers, planning consultants, architects, designers, and a variety of specialist environmental consultants.

    Paul is an experienced expert witness within the UK and has a broad experience of planning, licensing and statutory nuisance proceedings as well as being responsible for the successful design of a variety of impact mitigation measures including detailed engineering solutions, lay-out design, and administrative regimes where it has been necessary to closely liaise with clients, designers, and regulatory bodies in order to provide developments in accordance with sustainable principles.

  • Katrina Scherebnyj
    Katrina Scherebnyj

    M.A.Sc., P.Eng., MIOA

    Technical Director, Building Acoustics

    Katrina Scherebnyj

    Katrina Scherebnyj, M.A.Sc., P.Eng., MIOA

    Technical Director, Building Acoustics

    Katrina Scherebnyj started consulting in acoustics in 2007 in England and joined BKL in 2014. Her experience covers architectural acoustics, mechanical noise control, and environmental noise control, and she has worked on major projects in Canada, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

    In architectural acoustics, Katrina has worked on a range of new builds and refurbishment projects including schools, universities and higher education facilities, hospitals and healthcare facilities, performance spaces, cinemas, laboratories, office buildings, hotels, and residential buildings. She has provided acoustical design services in relation to sound insulation, room acoustics, and noise control.

    Katrina was a co-author of Music Accommodation in Secondary Schools: A Design Guide, published for the UK Department for Education in 2010. Researching the guide, she carried out acoustical measurements in the music departments of several schools and interviewed music teachers and students on the suitability of their music spaces.

    Katrina has extensive experience modelling internal sound fields and has carried out numerous models of performance spaces, lecture theatres, and other spaces where acoustical design is critical. She also has experience modelling outdoor noise propagation and has constructed and reviewed noise models for Columbia Containers in Vancouver, BC Children’s and Women’s Hospitals, the Pinnacle (once planned to be London’s tallest building), Crossrail, and other transportation projects.

    Katrina is a member of the Canadian Acoustical Association and the Institute of Acoustics (UK).

  • Henning Schlechtriem
    Henning Schlechtriem

    M.Sc.

    Managing Specialist Acoustical Consultant

    Henning Schlechtriem

    Henning Schlechtriem, M.Sc.

    Managing Specialist Acoustical Consultant

    Henning Schlechtriem, M.Sc., joined BKL in February 2020. He has 8 years of international project experience working as professional acoustical consultant in the design and assessment of residential and non-residential buildings.

    Henning has a Master’s Degree in Acoustics with Environmental Applications and a Bachelor’s Degree in Civil Engineering with specialization in building physics and acoustics. His professional expertise focuses on the fields of architectural and environmental acoustics. He is a proficient with software such as Odeon, SoundPLAN, STRUTT, Insul, Rhino+Grasshopper, Max/MSP, and with measurement equipment from Brüel And Kjær, NTi and Norsonic.

    He has worked together with architects, investors, municipalities, as well as structural and mechanical engineers, covering a wide range of projects including office, residential, and mixed-use buildings, hotels, hospitals, schools, and cultural venues. His work has involved the acoustical design and on-site assessment of room acoustics, sound insulation including flanking transmission, environmental noise and noise from building services.

    Henning has given presentations to architects and technical planners to share his knowledge about the acoustical design of masonry, concrete and lightweight constructions, timber-concrete hybrid buildings and general acoustical challenges during the design of buildings.

    He is a member of Deutsche Gesellschaft für Akustik, the German Association of Acoustics (DEGA) and is an Approved Assessor for Acoustics and Building Physics at the Chamber of Engineers in NRW and Hessen (Germany).

  • Andrew Williamson
    Andrew Williamson

    P.Eng., B.S.M.E.

    Specialist Acoustical Consultant

    Andrew Williamson

    Andrew Williamson, P.Eng., B.S.M.E.

    Specialist Acoustical Consultant

    A graduate of the University of Victoria, Andrew Williamson holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and has practiced as an acoustical consultant in BC for over two decades. He joined BKL in 2023.

    During his career, Andrew has worked on numerous projects involving environmental noise assessments, building noise and vibration control, and architectural acoustics. As a project manager, Andrew has led acoustics teams on a variety of projects across sectors including cultural and recreation, education and research, health care, industrial, commercial, and residential.

    Andrew has attended public meetings, open houses, and government-sponsored working groups to present and discuss technical information with the public, municipal councils, and members of the government and other organizations. In addition, Andrew has acted as an expert witness in BC Supreme Court and participated in a joint review panel hearing for the environmental assessment of a major infrastructure project.

    Andrew is a Professional Engineer registered with Engineers and Geoscientists BC.