INNOVATION September-October 2018

Scherebnyj, P.Eng., of BKL Consultants, however, the Centre is a resounding success. “It’s fantastic,” says Cocchia.

counselling, assessment, and treatment, to British Columbians (primarily children and youth) with Autism Spectrum Disorder. A neurodevelopment disorder that is typically detected in early childhood, Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) causes impairments in communication skills and social interactions, often combined with repetitive behaviours and restricted interests or activities. According to a 2018 Public Health Canada survey, one in 51 children ages six to 18 in British Columbia currently has ASD. Property management entrepreneurs Sergio Cocchia and Wendy Lisogar- Cocchia spearheaded the development of the Pacific Autism Family Centre in response to their own experiences trying to find services for their son, who is on the autism spectrum. “Twenty years ago,” says Sergio Cocchia, “when our son was first diagnosed, it was hard to find local supports and therapies. We started talking to the BC government and to private donors because we wanted BC families to have access to the services they need.” With both government and private-sector support lined up for a Vancouver-area centre, the next hurdle was finding a suitable location—and that’s where the project, now under the management of the Pacific Autism Family Centre Network, co-founded by the Cocchias, hit a snag. The non-profit found a great piece of land, but in a less-than-ideal location: along a very busy road and under the flight path of a well-used runway at the Vancouver International Airport. The level of noise produced in that location would be challenging for any new construction to deal with, but for a centre devoted to people with ASD, many of whom find noise unpleasant or distracting, and sometimes even shocking or terrifying, it could have been a disaster. Thanks to Katrina

“Incredibly quiet. You’d swear you’re

in the middle of the country somewhere.” Acoustical

engineering is the branch of engineering devoted to dealing with such issues as noise control, sound isolation, vibration isolation, speech privacy or intelligibility, and reverberation control. This is especially important in places like concert halls and other performance

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spaces, to ensure productions sound as their creators intended, but also in places like doctors’ offices or restaurants. Without acoustical engineering, any C ontinues on next page ...

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