Peter Rutherford

Dr. Peter Rutherford BSc, MSc, PhD (Strathclyde)

Position

Lecturer

Teaching Role

• Human Responses and Environmental Psychology
• 1st Year Design Studio Tutor

Research Interests

• Psychoacoustics and Psychophysics of architectural space (including Cross-modal interaction)
• Real-time acoustic rendering and auralisation of buildings using CATT Acoustic and Lake Huron20 Audio Convolution Engine
• VR systems and techniques
• Wayfinding and Disability Issues within the Built Environment
  

Contact Details

Internal tel.: 13173
External.: +44 115 951 3173
E-mail peter.rutherford@nottingham.ac.uk

 

SHORT CURRICULUM VITAE

Dr. Rutherford holds the post of Lecturer in Architecture where he lectures on Environmental Design to 1st year and runs a 2nd year studio module. He obtained his BSc in Architecture from Strathclyde in 1993, MSc in Computer Aided Design (specialising on room acoustic prediction systems) in 1994 and his PhD on Architectural and Psychoacoustics in 1997. Having completed his PhD he was employed by Sound Alert Technology, PLC in Leeds as an application engineer to develop the new localizable emergency vehicle sirens, firemen distress signal units and emergency egress aids which have appeared extensively in recent years on Tomorrows World. In 1999 he began an EPSRC funded postdoctoral research post at Leeds University (£260k – which he authored) dealing with the use of predictive virtual acoustic techniques for further developing the emergency egress aids. This was a huge project requiring the development of a full immersive VR kit for real-time audio rendering. This project has been judged by EPSRC as ‘Tending to Internationally Leading’.
His primary research area to this point is the integration of psychoacoustics and architectural acoustics; mainly human perception of the localization of sound using virtual reality techniques. He has extensive VR system development experience, and has brought all of the VR and acoustics equipment from Leeds to Nottingham. Current research projects include the audibility of lecture theatre acoustics (with Dr. Wilson), and hopefully will begin a research project in the near future on the acoustical properties of tensile membrane structures with Dr. Wilson and Dr. Chilton. A grant application is currently being written with Dr. Milena Radenkovic in Nottingham Computer Science on real-time distributed virtual acoustics using GRID technology. Another proposal dealing with acoustic heritage is currently being formulated in conjunction with Dr. Dimitris Charitos (and others) at Athens. Finally, Dr. Wilson and Dr. Rutherford have recently submitted a 1st round proposal to the EPSRC on the development of a novel intruder detection system as part of their Crime Prevention and Awareness call.

Publications

Rutherford, P. and Withington, D.J., “The Application of Virtual Acoustic Techniques for the Development of an Auditory Navigation Beacon used in Building Emergency Egress,” in proc. Of the 2001 International Conference on Auditory Display, Espoo, Finland, 2001.

Rutherford, P. “The Effect of Signal Type and Room Type on Auditory Localization within Synthetic Rooms.” British Society of Audiology Short Papers Meeting on Experimental Studies of Hearing and Deafness, Sheffield, UK, 16-17 September 2002 (abstract).

Rutherford, P., “Auditory Localization within Synthetic Rooms”, invited lecture at the MRC Institute of Hearing Research, University of Nottingham, February 2003.

Rutherford, P., “Auditory Navigation with an Application in Emergency Evacuation,” Fire Safety Journal, in prep.