Jewish Braille Institute

IAC Acoustics was contracted by the B.R. Fries Construction Company to design, to fabricate and to install six Accutone™2 series translation booths for their digital recording studio located in the heart of Manhattan overlooking the Empire State Building. Three of the six were NIC 53 type booths with a one inch thick interior fabric panel enhancement package while the other three were NIC 60 type booths with a four inch thick interior fabric panel enhancement package. All six booths were also outfitted with oversized acoustic viewing windows that provided the translators a much more open feel within the space.

This project was the first application where IAC utilized the full height fabric panels, floor-to-ceiling, instead of the conventional enhancement arrangement which features the chair rail and perforated steel liner panels. To complicate this unique fabric panel design, the institute required surface mounted microphones and other associated equipment. To incorporate this into the full fabric panel design, IAC provided a solid steel hat section and the appropriate custom fabric panel cutouts that allowed the proper structural mounting of the equipment to the metal panel shell. Integrating these unique features presented several challenges to our engineering and design team, including an elevator too small to carry a typical panel. In the end, including a few trips up and down the stairs by our dedicated installation technicians, all hurdles were successfully overcome at the end.

The JBI Library provides the visually impaired, blind, physically handicapped and reading disabled of all backgrounds and ages with books, magazines and cultural programs in audio (in seven languages), in large print and in Braille. Its unique programs enrich the lives of 35,000 individuals around the world. The library gives its readers a large collection ranging from mystery novels to cookbooks to timely topics such as the production of biological weapons. It also offers a broad spectrum of fiction, biograph, history, Holocaust studies, short stories, psychology and self-help, memoirs, humor and more.