IRSA, an educational centre for young people with visual, hearing and speech impairments, located in Brussels, recently installed a vibrating floor designed and fabricated with the precious help and expertise of BESIX engineers and the financial support of BESIX Foundation.
The vibrating floor enables the children and youngsters with a hearing impairment to decrypt the link between sound and vibration in a playful way. After all, sign language is not used everywhere nor by everyone, so it is crucial for them to understand the world of sounds and of people who can hear.
In the past, the centre was using a small 80 cm² resonance module. The new 10 m² floor, consisting of 12 modules of 80x80 cm each, enables the therapists to organise group activities and treat many more patients at the same time. The floor is a sort of amplifier connected to a microphone or a music player. The vibration of sounds is transmitted to the floor and hence to the people standing on it.
The new vibrating floor is a dream come true for the therapists, thanks to BESIX Foundation and David Smet, a former engineer from Jacques Delens who initiated the project. Our colleague engineers Servé Dolmans, Frédéric Gaillard, and Adriatik Qerimani, took over from David in June 2022, worked together with the manufacturer and followed the delivery and the installation of the floor.
Thank you to the Foundation and our colleagues for this successful example of skill-based patronage.
