Ecophon Acoustic Bulletin

Source image: Dynamic Architecture

Yesterday, one of my colleagues, forwarded a news item on BBC news. Although it has not much to do with acoustics, it is worth mentioning.
Italian architect David Fisher designed the world's first moving building, an 80-storey tower with revolving floors giving a shifting shape. The 420-metre (1,378-foot) building's apartments would spin a full 360 degrees, at voice command, around a central column by means of 79 giant power-generating wind turbines located between each floor.

Click here to see the animation about the first building that rotates, moves, and changes shape

Continue reading "Can the sound of a voice move a skyscraper?" »

By Marc Janssen at 11:53 AM | Permalink

CEN/TC 126, Building acoustics, has created a working group, WG 11, to develop Test Codes for suspended, acoustic ceilings. WG 11 started its work about a year ago with Nils-Åke Andersson from Saint-Gobain Ecophon as convener and has now about 15 participants from around Europe. The reason doing this work is the problems with differences in measurement results from laboratories.

Continue reading "Test Code for sound absorption measurements." »

By Nils-Åke Andersson at 1:18 PM | Permalink

On Tuesday June 16th around 50 delegates participated in a conference in Manchester called "Acoustics in Healthcare Envrionments". The conference, organised by the Institute of Acoustics in the UK, was hosted by Adrian Popplewell, Ramboll UK. Seven papers were presented during the day. One of the speakers, Anthony Thomas of Ecophon UK, wrote some notes especially for Acoustic Bulletin. Please click on the link below to read them.

Continue reading "Acoustics in Healthcare Environments - Notes from IOA Conference" »

By Marc Janssen at 1:24 PM | Permalink

Some partners of the Week of Sound have collaborated to provide the visitors of the Palais de la Découverte in Paris with a unique acoustic corridor walk through experience.

Continue reading "A Unique Acoustical Experience At The Palais de la Découverte, IN PARIS" »

By Colin Campbell at 12:07 PM | Permalink

Euronoise is the European conference on noise control, co-ordinated by the EAA Technical Committee Noise and organised by a national acoustical society on behalf of the European Acoustics Association (EAA).
Edinburgh in Scotland is the setting for the 8th European Conference on Noise Control

Continue reading "Euronoise 2009 (Edinburgh) 26-28 October" »

By Colin Campbell at 12:01 PM | Permalink

Coming up soon in New Zeeland is a symposium on tinnitus. This meeting will be a great opportunity for tinnitus clinicians and researchers to join forces and updated their knowledge on this subject.

Continue reading "2009 TINNITUS DISCOVERY in New Zealand" »

By Carsten Svensson at 10:22 AM | Permalink

Evidence Based Hospital Design (EBD) is a new field that guides health care construction. Research indicates that well-designed physical settings play an important role in helping hospitals to support patients healing and making hospitals better places for staff to work. The findings support the importance of improving a range of design characteristics or interventions, including good acoustic environments, nature distractions and daylight.

Continue reading "Evidence Based Design – quieter hospitals improve patient outcomes" »

By Katrin Bergmark at 7:49 AM | Permalink

An impressive initiative by the National Deaf Children's Society (NDCS) and Grand Designs Kevin McCloud involving 50 MPs, is calling for government to ensure that new schools meet national standards for acoustics. The call comes after Freedom of Information Act data received by NDCS showed that only 21% of the local authorities in England that responded had new schools with acoustics meeting the requirements set out in Building Bulletin 93

Continue reading "Grand Designs on School Acoustics" »

By Colin Campbell at 8:58 AM | Permalink

Earlier this year the founder of the “elevator music”, Muzak, went bankrupt! But the business of background music, making you shop more, is still successful.

Continue reading "Shopping music – influencing you either you like it or not!" »

By Carsten Svensson at 3:44 PM | Permalink

The Building Acoustics Group of the UK's Institute of Acoustics has organised a meeting in Manchester on 16th June 2009. Entitled "Acoustics in Healthcare Environments", it will be held at the Victioria & Albert Hotel, and will discuss Key Issues relating to exactly how environmental acoustics affect healthcare outcomes.

Continue reading "I.O.A. TO HOLD "ACOUSTICS IN HEALTHCARE ENVIRONMENTS" MEETING, in JUNE 2009" »

By Anthony Thomas at 1:04 PM | Permalink

Noise Action Week in the UK aims to raise awareness about the health effects such as stress, excessive noise can cause for us all.

During Noise Action Week hundreds of organisations involved in managing noise across the UK, including local authority noise, housing, health teams, antisocial behaviour teams, housing organisations, mediation services, schools and others, coordinate events at local level to educate and inform people about noise, the impact it has and how to reduce it.
http://www.environmental-protection.org.uk/noiseactionweek/
The Institute of Acoustics is a sponsor for the week
http://www.ioa.org.uk/

Continue reading "Noise Action Week (UK) 18-22 May 2009" »

By Colin Campbell at 11:09 AM | Permalink

Reported in Ecophon Acoustic Bulletin (November 3, 2008) screening of primary school pupils’ hearing wasn’t a research program only. One of the main tasks was to build awareness toward hearing protection and noise control. A short guide for children, parents and teachers has been prepared, with advises how to protect hearing and how to find first signs of problems. Polish readers can have a look at original text here. Less fluent in Polish can click link below for English translation.

Continue reading "11 COMMANDMENTS TO PROTECT YOUR HEARING" »

By Mikołaj Jarosz at 1:05 PM | Permalink

Peter Zumthor, Swiss architect, sometimes called “the poet of the silence”, was awarded a Pritzker Prize – one of the highest recognitions for architects. Zumthor is known for his approach to architecture, which assumes multisensual perception. While some have called his architecture quiet, his buildings masterfully assert their presence, engaging many of our senses, not just our sight but also our senses of touch, hearing and smell.

Continue reading "PETER ZUMTHOR GETS PRITZKER PRIZE" »

By Mikołaj Jarosz at 4:34 PM | Permalink

Each of us exposed to noise of certain level will suffer so called Temporary Threshold Shift (TTS) – that is in fact temporary partial hearing loss. The TTS level and its duration depends on level of the noise, time of exposure and noise frequency band. There is no need to visit military firing ground to experience it – just go to the primary school in your neighborhood! Noise levels (Leq) measured in primary schools corridors very often varies between 80 and 90 dBA. Recently prepared simulation program shows that 20 min exposition for noise of Leq=88 dBA cause TTS of 20-24 dBA and hearing needs 165 min of rest for full recovery.

Continue reading "NOISE and TEMPORARY DEAFNESS" »

By Mikołaj Jarosz at 1:22 PM | Permalink

The increased number of people working in open-plan offices has revealed the lack of knowledge regarding how to design an acoustical environment that’s supporting the activities going on there. Challenges in open-plan office design are to create an environment both for concentration and communication without disturbances between different working groups. In a Nordic Innovation Centre project the acoustic conditions in five open-plan offices have been investigated. The offices were situated in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland.

Continue reading "Open-plan offices - An intervention study" »

By Marc Janssen at 7:20 PM | Permalink