When: Tuesday, February 24, 2026from 12:00 PM to 01:30 PM CT
Where: UrbanWorks Office, 125 S Clark St #2070, Chicago, IL 60603 & Virtual
Details:
Please join us at noon on Tuesday, February 24, 2026 at UrbanWorks for an enlightening discussion on architectural acoustics design strategies and issues designers/specifiers should be cognizant of when considering architectural acoustics. We will be joined by Carl Giegoild FAIA, a partner at Threshold LLC, an acoustical & audio/visual design consulting firm based in Chicago, who will lend his knowledge and expertise, as well as representatives from Ketchum & Walton (formerly Huff Company) a manufacturer’s representative agency to lend the product-based solutions perspective to acoustical problems in architectural spaces. This open ended and lively lunchtime discussion is open to ALL who want to learn more, share experiences, and ask questions regarding any architectural acoustics topic.
Threshold is a team of Acoustic and Audio/Video design consultants who help our clients see what they want to hear. We design places of gathering to learn, share wisdom, and pass along culture. Threshold consultants approach the visual realm of architecture to reinforce the subtlety, power, and delight that sound can bring to the built environment.
Learning objectives:
- Insight into the evolutionary importance of hearing and its influence on architectural perception and well-being.
- Clear strategies for maximizing interactions with an acoustics consultant including common coordination challenges among architects, specifiers, and contractors when implementing acoustical design.
- Awareness of acoustical design impacts on accessibility, occupant comfort, speech intelligibility, and environmental quality across a range of project types.
- Understanding of tools for communicating what you hear, including immersive acoustic simulation's role and capabilities in the design process.
- Deep knowledge of standard limitations (STC, NC, etc.) and methods for enhancing client understanding of acoustic experience.
This course is 1 LU.
Presenters:
Tim Perez, CTS-D
Partner
Tim found music early in life, studying piano and guitar into his adolescence. The predictable, grandiose visions of a career in music probably have not faded over the years (he has a mind like a steel trap) but have rather been overlaid with other, related pursuits. First, a more technical interest in sound emerged, leading him into several years of live sound production during high school, mixing for school presentations, pep rallies, and theatrical productions. He then immersed himself in a collaborative program in audio engineering at the University of Miami, finding there an inspiring balance of science and art and culminating in a Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering with a concentration in Audio. Graduate studies in architectural acoustics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute followed, focusing on computational methods of simulating the human auditory system. His graduate work was presented at the Acoustical Society of America. Tim is also a member of the National Association of Acoustical Consultants (NCAC).
As he moves though his world, he snaps up details and observations at an impressive rate, somehow keeping all of them handy and ready for synthesis. As a result, he can jump easily between architectural acoustics and AV systems design while maintaining a seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of pop culture.
John Strong
Principal
John started quietly with interests in music and just generally tinkering with things, over-achieved with dual Bachelors degrees in Music Theory and Electrical Engineering at Notre Dame, and topped off his education with a Masters degree in Architectural Sciences from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Architectural Acoustics, Engineering Acoustics, and Psychoacoustics). As the majors suggest, his interests lie in the intersections of music, technology, and art, and his pursuits bear this out. He has arranged, directed, performed, mixed and mastered in jazz, classical, Celtic, and electronic genres. For five years, he taught music theory and technique to grade school students in suburban Chicago.
He is our resident expert on the design and assembly of tube-based audio electronics, plays guitar, saxophone, and piano, dabbles in trombone, trumpet, euphonium, clarinet, and flute, and sings when he catches his breath. He was honored in school with the Paul Bertolini Jazz Soloist Award at Notre Dame, and is the only one of us who appears on the same Irish traditional CD as Regis Philbin (who sings Too Rah Loo Rah Loo Rah). It’s a niche market, but he’s nailed it.
He has lectured and programmed aural simulations for the Acoustical Society of America, the Audio Engineering Society, and the American Institute of Architects.
Carl P. Giegold,
FAIA, LEED AP
Partner
Carl could be found haunting construction sites at the age of seven and by high school had settled on architecture as his pursuit. He earned a Bachelor of Architecture with honors from Virginia Tech in 1982, was licensed as an architect two years later, and specialized in acoustics in 1995 after exploring restoration, residential, and institutional architecture. This broad background in design and technical architecture adds great depth to his consulting in acoustics. He has carried design responsibility for many music and theater performance and educational spaces in the United States and internationally.
He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and has presented his work at conferences held by the Acoustical Society of America, the Institute of Acoustics in the United Kingdom, and Ryerson University in Toronto. He has lectured architectural and acoustics classes at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Virginia Tech, Illinois Institute of Technology, The University of Illinois, and Cambridge University.
RSVP (Bring Your Own Lunch): $0 members & non-members
We will have both an in-person and virtual option available.