Empowering traditional house for future noise control based on sound frequency propagation

Geographical altitude represents tropical environment in Indonesia where the different wind acceleration effects the noise control. The traditional house was designed in the past when the noise was limited in the rural area, and it is changed into the noisy environment in urban space and will potentially be critical in the future. The aim of this study is to evaluate the existing traditional building noise and to upgrade its performance for empowering the future adaptation. The real-time analyzer for sound level meter was fixed in occupant reference height in order to examine the frequency bands effect. MATLAB coding is also conducted in order to evaluate the noise propagation performance. The traditional Javanese houses are the representative case of Indonesia tropical building in both lowland and highland regions. The results are highlighted that by distance and wood or bamboo wall, the sound pressure level is reduced to 20 dB and 15 dB for lowland and highland, respectively. For higher measured frequencies, more than 1 kHz, the road noise gives the major influence to the noise propagation. Meanwhile, the lowest frequency transmission, 125 Hz, has the highest consequence on the noise propagation in the road, but less in the room. It will be the consideration on empowering the local material by its coefficient selection in the future design. The traditional wall has low composite transmission loss; it can reduce insufficient rate.