Nations Roof needed to improve the acoustic performance of the new Lionsgate Studios roof assembly while contributing to the thermal performance required by code.
Project Overview
Nations Roof was contracted to roof a pair of studios by design-build firm Steve Pustola and Associates. The client—Lionsgate Studios—was constructing a 1,000,000+ ft2 campus of stages, office, support space, and city street backlots in Yonkers, New York. It is one of largest dedicated video and film production facilities on the East Coast. In 2021 with construction of the second sound stage underway, film crews working in the first completed studio space began noticing noise coming from the nearby train station. It was distracting enough—inside the sound stage the exterior sound levels were able to be picked up by the microphones during recording—that filming had to pause regularly. Interruptions in this line of work cost time and money. A new approach would be required for roofing the second sound stage.
The Goal
Nations Roof needed to improve the acoustic performance of the new roof assembly while contributing to the thermal performance required by code. The total roof system also needed to be fully warrantable to ensure it would meet the many needs of the building owner for years to come.
The Challenge
The typical installation on the first studio roof—two layers of polyisocyanurate insulation and a mechanically attached TPO roofing system—wasn’t effectively decreasing the exterior environmental sound transmission from passing trains. The new roof assembly would need to meet the acoustic requirements for the space while also providing effective water, air, and thermal control for durability of the roof over time.
The Solution
An acoustician was engaged and Nations Roof also pulled in some of their manufacturing partners for insight on how best to improve the acoustic performance of the roof. They were familiar with a number of roof products that had sound blocking properties, but needed an assembly where all noise control strategies would work together to reduce outside-inside transmission. After reviewing various product specifications to determine the best approach to meet the client’s need for a fully warrantable system that also met their stringent acoustical needs, Nations Roof decided to work with ROCKWOOL to design the assembly.
The ROCKWOOL Building Science Team provided testing data on a number of assemblies for Nations Roof to evaluate as they worked on a new design. They advised incorporating three fundamental principles for reducing sound transmission through the roof assembly: adding mass, adding absorption, and decoupling. Specifically, they recommended DensDeck for mass, ROCKWOOL Toprock® Flute Filler and Toprock® DD for sound absorption, and decoupling by adhering the top layer of gypsum roof cover board with the membrane in order to bury fasteners in the layer below.
Toprock® DD is a compatible insulation board for all low-slope roof decks and is an ideal board for partial adhered roof systems. It has excellent acoustic properties. The product can be used as either a base layer of thermal insulation in an acoustic assembly under Multifix™ or Toprock® DD Plus, or as the top layer of a hybrid roof assembly over polyisocyanurate or other roof insulations, while ROCKWOOL Toprock® Flute Filler is designed to deliver high-performance sound absorption for standard metal roof deck profiles. Flute Filler is installed in the flute of a standard metal deck to absorb exterior noise and to minimize exterior noise reverberation within the voids of the roof deck.
The Building Science team used the results from a high-performance assembly they had tested to model a further-improved assembly for Nations Roof to incorporate in their proposed assembly. The analysis predicted a Sound Transmission Class (STC) rating of 55, which exceeded the client’s demanding requirements for this challenging site. They also evaluated the thermal performance of the roof system and estimated a total of R38 from the final assembly, which surpassed the minimum requirement of R30.
Assembly details
1.5” B-Deck
Toprock B-Deck Flute Filler
3 layers 5/8” gypsum roof boards
1 layer 2” polyiso
2 layers 3” Toprock® DD
1 layer gypsum cover board
12” fasteners (to attach all of those layers to the deck)
1 layer of 5/8” gypsum cover board (adhered in low rise foam)
Fully Adhered 80 mil TPO
Lionsgate Studios, Yonkers, NY
Yonkers, New York
