A year has passed by since the Ecophon International Acousticians’ Seminar (EIAS) was held in Sweden last year. The conference offered a range of speakers from a multi-disciplinary background, who all had (at least) one big thing in common: an enthusiasm for improving architectural acoustics. “I had no expectations of what this would be like. I found […]
Treating critically ill infants in a sound way
Imagine having a baby, or remember when you had yours. One of your strongest wishes (if not the strongest) was probably for the baby to be healthy, and for the pregnancy to be ‘normal’. But what if, instead of having a full-term, healthy baby on your chest, you find yourself in a high-tech Neonatal Intensive […]
Nature rocks! How nature and serenity can be used for rehabilitation
The positive impact of nature on human health is often attributed to nature’s inherent stress reducing effects. As (chronic) stress has a well-known detrimental effect on health, it can directly or indirectly contribute to the epidemic of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), such as diabetes, cardiovascular disorders, and mental disorders. How do we behave when feeling stressed? When we feel […]
Fight, flight, or safety? The impact of alarming sounds on healthcare professionals
Fight, flight, or safety? Humans respond very well to sounds, and our hearing is created to protect us. To guide us in understanding what is going on we have our ears, our own built-in ‘watchdogs’ . It quickly determine where a sound comes from, and whether a situation should activate our fight or flight mode. […]
Body language and psychoacoustic @ EFMC 2016
European Facility Management Conference, Milano 2016 Had the pleasure presenting about “Planning for Psychoacoustic – how to resolve office noise distraction” together with Nigel Oseland at EFMC 2016 in Milano last week. “Enhancing the People and Business” was the theme of the conference- which our method presented is just in line with. Our DARE principal in combination with […]
Study: less cognitive stress in open-plan offices with good acoustics
Saint- Gobain Ecophon and the Stress Research Institute in Stockholm conducted a unique study in a real-life office environment to examine how sound affects people in open plan offices. The aim was to see how the ceiling’s properties affect workers’ health, productivity and the perceived disturbance. And the result was clear – a better sound […]
The epic journey of activity based working
“Time and again, people fail to put enough effort into getting the acoustics right. Acoustics affect our behaviour and our productivity. The office design and the IT are the enablers.” Louis Lhoest – Veldhoen+Company Activity based working is more than desk sharing Activity based working (sometimes referred to as ABW) is frequently mentioned in […]
BBC discussed office noise and productivity
(And why working from home might not be the solution) Those of us working with building acoustics all have our own horror stories of projects that didn’t prioritise the sound environment and only afterwards realised that the space isn’t fit for purpose. So it’s great when mainstream media such as the Guardian and New Yorker, dedicates space and […]
Balancing ECOnomy, ECOlogy, ECOsystem – in ECO for Sustainable Design!
Sustainable design and acoustics goes hand in hand in the new ECO for Sustainable Design magazine – Office Edition. As “Green Buildings” are starting to focus on sustainability; the complete picture with more focus on the people and their health and productivity; we have gathered a potpourri of stories on sustainable acoustic environments such as: Philip Vanhoutte’s […]
New Bond movie is quieter than many school canteens
Post by Swedish sound expert and blogger Jonas Christensson. The new Bond movie, Spectre, premiered a little while back and as I’m interested in sound, I measured the sound levels when I attended the premiere at my local cinema and was surprised that the sound level was 70 dB(A); less than many Swedish school canteens! It’s difficult […]
