Thorburn Associates Inc.

05/25/2026

All gave some; some gave all. Thank you to the heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom.

05/19/2026

Project Hightlight: Peppervine, a restaurant located within the Piedmont Town Center of Charlotte, NC underwent a renovation of an existing 8,000sf space.

Nestled on a prominent corner within a mixed-use development, the restaurant space had upscale condominium units located directly above and a neighboring retail tenant, separated by a south demising wall.

Distinct from traditional fine dining, this restaurant exudes an inviting atmosphere. A key objective of the owner was to foster effortless and casual conversations for patrons at each table. To achieve this, particular attention was given to acoustical treatments. With high ceilings, the primary concern rested upon mitigating sound accumulations during busy hours.

Thorburn Associates reviewed the architectural drawings and provided recommendations to control excessive reflective and reverberant sound. The acoustical elements applied were not only functional but also seamlessly integrated behind the lighting and other interior design features.

Thorburn Associates creates designs to increase intelligibility, especially at the entrance of this restaurant to give a grand first impression of the space.

Additional recommendations were provided by Thorburn Assocaites regarding the food service equipment, the HVAC, and the audio system layout to ensure that vibration levels were at a minimum. In the end, Thorburn Associates harnessed the science of sound to create a pleasing dining experience for all guests to enjoy.

05/13/2026

Project Highlight: Wake Tech Community College - Hendrick Automotive Center of Excellence.

The facility, located on the Scott Northern Wake Tech Campus in Raleigh, North Carolina, was built to expand Wake Tech's automotive and collision repair programs. Thorburn Associates was proud to deliver the full AV, acoustics, and telecommunications design.

Learn more: https://ta-inc.com/wake-tech-community-college-hendrick-automotive-center-of-excellence/

04/29/2026

Project Highlight: Davidson College – Hance Auditorium

Hance Auditorium is a 115-seat multi-purpose presentation space located on the top floor, under the dome of the Chambers Building at Davidson College in Davidson, North Carolina.

With comfortable seating and adjustable configurations, it is an intimate space for presentations, club and group meetings, guest speakers, and video screenings for a variety of classes. For improved functionality, the space was fully redesigned and upgraded with high end acoustical performance improvements.

After completing a three-phase feasibility study for the auditorium space, Thorburn Associates continued to be a part of the remaining design phases for this project redesign by providing acoustical and technology design consulting services.

04/14/2026

We are involved in multiple market sectors which helps facilitate cross pollination of ideas and solutions. With experience on over 3,600 projects, one of Thorburn Associates' strengths is our ability to provide an integrated solution for the technical aspects of the design.

04/01/2026

We are incredibly proud to celebrate 34 years in business, as of today, April 1. Thank you to our clients for trusting us with their projects, and our team for their work and dedication!

03/16/2026

Project Highlight: The Sullenberger Aviation Museum is a modern facility located next to the runway at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, comprising of three distinct structures – a Welcome Center, a Main Gallery covering an area of 42,000sf, and a pre-existing Metal Hangar. Given the facility’s proximity to the runway, special attention was paid to minimizing exterior noise transmission to the more acoustically sensitive areas such as the offices, classrooms, and meeting spaces.

To achieve this, Thorburn Associates conducted an on-site acoustical assessment, collected data, and presented recommendations to mitigate sound disruptions caused by nearby aircraft movements.

03/05/2026

Project Highlight: W.C. Overfelt High School in San Jose, California

The existing 3,200sf building required a modernization/ transformation to create a new administrative wing.

The project also included the addition of an approximately 24,000sf steel-framed performing arts center. The new building houses a 200-seat theatre; classrooms for music, art, photography and drama programs, including an 80-piece band room and a photo lab with a dark room.

After a review of the architectural drawings, Thorburn Associates helped define acoustical design goals and made recommendations for background noise levels from the mechanical systems, reverberation time in the Recital Hall, Band Room and conference spaces, and room acoustics and sound isolation between acoustically sensitive areas. A theatrical audiovisual system including projection, recording capabilities and a distributed audio system was designed for the theatre. AV systems for the band and drama rooms as well as the conference room were also included.

02/19/2026

02/13/2026

Project Highlight: Wake Tech Community College introduced the first phase of their Research Triangle Campus with a New Classroom and Administration Building, simply called Building 1 or RT1. The 3-story building, designed to serve 1,050 students, spans an impressive 109,000 square feet, and had a construction budget of nearly $47 million. Thorburn Associates played an integral role in the design of this flagship building by providing both the acoustical and technology design.

Audiovisual technology design was required for all fifty-five spaces and twenty-two distinct room types, including various classrooms, labs, both large and small conference rooms, a library space, collaboration/huddle spaces, divisible meeting rooms, and testing rooms. Thorburn Associates worked closely with the design team to determine the goals for the project, discussed the technology system requirements, defined the end-user’s needs, and developed a preliminary budget for the technology systems to foster an environment where technology seamlessly intertwines with the Wake Tech’s pursuit of a hub for advanced learning and collaboration.

As part of the acoustical design of the building, Thorburn Associates conducted acoustical noise measurements, both long term and short-term readings of specific noise events such as aircraft flyovers and train pass-bys, to document the existing acoustical environment. Because of the nature of the noise sources, particularly the campus’ proximity to Raleigh-Durham International Airport and aircraft flyovers, no part of the building was truly shielded from the noise, therefore all exterior surfaces needed to be considered. As a result, façade recommendations were provided for the roof system & exterior walls systems. In addition, a sound isolation review was performed for interior walls, doors & glazing (on windows) as glass is a common acoustical “weak point” in partitions.

The (RT1) Building was awarded the 2020 AIA Triangle Merit Award and the 2019 AIA North Carolina Merit Award.

02/05/2026

We designed our lunch and learns to cover what we know best while simultaneously delivering architect-centric content that focuses on the integration of acoustics, audiovisual, and lighting design.

https://ta-inc.com/lunch-learns/