Ricardo Canto Leyton

How far do you speak in the office?

2013-04-17 by Ricardo Canto Leyton

Should we just accept that it takes 20 metres for the sound level of someone’s voice to drop to a comfortable non-distracting level, or should we reduce this to 10 metres so that workgroup-to-workgroup distractions are minimized? In the Nordic Innovation report “Acoustic design of open-plan offices” , it was found that in a Swedish […]

Office workers react to acoustics in new survey

2013-03-26 by Ricardo Canto Leyton

A survey of 2000 workers in the UK has revealed that people find difficulties concentrating and are not satisfied with their privacy. Almost 80% of those surveyed work in open plan or shared offices. When asked what they thought about the current acoustic environment in their office, more than half of respondents (54%) said working […]

Room acoustics a topic for German FMs

2013-03-01 by Ricardo Canto Leyton

The german facility management yearly event took place in Frankfurt 26-28 of Frebruary, and for the first time ever room acoustics was on the agenda. Rainer Machner, concept developer office DE, was one of the speakers in this 2h session, focusing on explaining the ISO3382-3 standard for open plan offices. Link to programme: http://www.mesago.de/de/FM/Fuer_Besucher/Kongress/index.htm Link […]

Room acoustics live on air in France

2013-01-22 by Ricardo Canto Leyton

The Week of Sound took place from 14th to 19th of January in Paris. It is a yearly event and serves as a platform for a wide range of exchange on acoustics, sound, auditory health and musical expression. As part of this week Yoan Le-Muet, Concept Developer Office was on air three times during that […]

Workplace distractions in open plan – an epidemic?

2012-12-12 by Ricardo Canto Leyton

Helena Jahncke from sweden concludes in her recently finished thesis “Cognitive Performance and Restoration in Open-Plan Office Noise” that open plan office noise lowers performance and increases fatigue. – We have seen that performance deteriorates 2-10 percent if it is possible to understand what colleagues in the background say than if the number is not […]

Working in open spaces can make you sick

2012-09-23 by Ricardo Canto Leyton

A study has published in the Asia-Pacific Journal of Health Management has concluded that the switch to open-plan has led to lower productivity and higher worker stress. “The high level of noise causes employees to lose concentration, leading to low productivity, there are privacy issues because everyone can see what you are doing on the […]

Ricardo Canto Leyton

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