Have a look at some more summaries on open-plan office acoustics. “Determination of acoustic conditions in open offices and suggestions for acoustic classification” Valtteri Hongisto, Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Turku, Finland DL2 and “radius of distraction” as the future acoustic descriptors in open offices? Speech privacy and the distraction efficiency of surrounding speech can […]
Sustainable acoustics
The world population has been multiplied by 1000 in 10.000 years. It’s obvious that if we want to safeguard the quality of living for future generations, we need to show environmental awareness and take measures already today. A definition of sustainability is meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations […]
“How you improve speech privacy in open-plan offices”
Reported from ICA Madrid John Bradley – National Research Council, Montreal Better speech privacy in open-plan offices can be most consistently achieved by a combination of quantitative design procedures and validation measurements, says John Bradley. This has not usually been done in the past because of the lack of convenient design and measurement tools. While […]
Take acoustic design more seriously
Acoustic environment in Finnish offices, the summary of questionnaire studies Riikka Helenius, Finnish Institute of Occupational Health The result from a recent office study including 8 Finnish offices were presented. The acoustical conditions of the 8 offices represented typical Finnish offices. Noise and thermal conditions were experienced as the most disturbing work environment factors. The […]
Highly intelligible background speech of 55 dB(A) impairs cognitive performance
Reported live from ICA Madrid Sabine Schlittmeier Sabine Schlittmeier, psychologist at Eichstätt University in Germany, presented her paper called Background speech varying in intelligibility – Effects on coginitive perfromance and perceived disturbance. Sabine presented three experiments, which tested the impact of background speech varying in intelligibility and/or level on basic cognitive functions (verbal short-term memory, […]
Improved acoustics reduce risks in Healthcare premises
“It seems likely that improved acoustic conditions reduce risks of conflicts and errors.” This is just one of the main messages from the research made in a coronary care unit in Sweden. Acoustics reduce risks The study points out the importance of further research on the possible effects of acoustics in healthcare on staff turnover, […]
