Jim and Martie Bultman Student Center

Hope College

ABD Engineering & Design worked with Stantec (Philadelphia) on the Hope College Jim and Martie Bultman Student Center, the college’s first dedicated student-center space since 1980. The facility includes a comfortable lounge with fireplaces and a view across the Pine Grove toward Dimnent Memorial Chapel and Graves Hall. There’s a large multi-purpose event space, exciting food and coffee cafe, intimate chapel, and a flexible movie theater/performance room for the long-running student film series, speakers, and Nykerk practices. Other program elements of the building include Student Life, Counseling, and Psychological Services.

ABD provided complete acoustical engineering services and designed integrated audiovisual systems, including digital signage, sounds systems, and projection screens throughout the student center. The acoustical challenges included a multi-purpose room stacked above a flexible movie theater space. Our acoustical consultants paid special attention to the noise isolation and impact insulation between the two, to be sure the two conflicting spaces could be used simultaneously. Room acoustics were critical in the open spaces, and mechanical noise control was important throughout.