How do you improve acoustic privacy in open offices? This might be the most important question for anyone designing or managing open office spaces as speech noise is the primary contributor to distractions for office workers [1]. The answer is that the right acoustic features must be in place, from the very base build of […]
Design dive: Open offices, part 3 – Interior
In this post series, we aim to provide you with all the foundational knowledge you need to create the best possible workspace sound environments. We have already covered the context history, materials, and geometry in the previous parts. This post deals with the interior acoustic design of open offices. How important is interior design for […]
International & American standards for indoor acoustic comfort
In many circumstances it may be desirable to refer to international or national standards to ensure that exact details of quality, methods, measures etc. is precisely corresponding to a predetermined set of rules and guidelines. There are several standards relating to room acoustics that anybody working in the building industry could utilize for better collaboration […]
Ventilation through acoustic ceilings – What is diffuse ceiling ventilation?
Designing a holistic indoor environment can be challenging. It will often entail several compromises between quality of different aspects of well-being. It is extremely rare that a solution comes along that both enhances indoor comfort, reduces complexity of design while also saving money and lowering emissions. It definitely is extremely rare, but it happens. Diffuse […]
Nuanced room acoustics: Technical discriptors
Room acoustics is more nuanced than what is specified in most national requirements and regulations. If you, for example, wish to create a good sound environment in an open office environment, it is often better to consider multiple parameters and not merely the absorption area or reverberation time. The four primary technical basic terms that […]
The basics of room acoustics: Theory & terms
We at Acoustic Bulletin writes for both acousticians and sound enthusiasts of all types and levels of experience. This post is for anyone who is just entering the field of room acoustics. It contains only very simple and basic descriptions of the the main terms, but should provide enough detail to give you a firm […]
The soundscape design pyramid: A design aspect hierarchy model
There are many factors contributing to the quality of a sound environment. Especially in complex rooms like open offices, hospitals and learning environments. It is therefore important to have a clear understanding of how the different aspects of a design should be prioritised in relation to each other to ensure a high-quality outcome. Failing to […]
Psychoacoustics: Humans and sound environments
From thunderclaps to crying children: sound waves have a large variety of physical, physiological, and psychological effects on people. These effects, rather than the actual sound wave, affect acoustic comfort. In room-acoustic design, it is often not enough to measure how to achieve the best possible technical parameters. In addition to this, one should always […]
5 quality studies on the effects of noise on office workers
Being an editor on Acoustic Bulletin brings with it a fair bit of research. We often try to be a more accessible source of information on acoustics, but we also know that many of our readers are academics. In this post we test a new format where we recommend high quality studies to our readers. […]
EIAS 2015 throwback: Four presentations on room acoustic descriptors
In anticipation of the next Ecophon International Acoustic Seminar (EIAS) we bring you these 4 presentations on acoustic descriptors from EIAS 2015. Much in the world has changed since 2015, but the need for more technical descriptors in evaluating room acoustic quality is not one of them. Technical objective descriptors provides us to more accurately […]
