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 […]
Offices
Study on well-being, productivity and leadership in open offices
(foto: Martin Palven) Lately there has been great focus on a yet not published research made by Aram Seddigh, scientist in offices from Stress Research Institute Stockholm University, with over 3000 persons interviewed about wellbeing, productivity and leadership. 45 % are not satisfied sitting i open office! The research is divided into 3 parts. The […]
Working in open spaces can make you sick
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 […]
Acoustic awareness raised at EFMC2012
The Ecophon office network joined up in an effort to raise acoustic awareness among the facility management community, at EFMC 2012, trying to emphasise the importance of thinking about acoustics at an early stage, and the influence of acoustics to people’s satisfaction, performance and well-being. Facility managers, workplace designers, and others within the >700 attendants […]
Open plan offices at Euronoise 2012
Open plan office acoustics were the subject of the afternoon on June 12th, at the Euronoise 2012 in Prague. The session was chaired by Valtteri Hongisto, from the finnish institute of occupational health, and dealt with the acoustic design of open plan offices and included presentations from Jukka Keränen, Claus Lynge Christensen, C.B Pop and […]
New open plan office ISO-standard published
The new standard ISO 3382-3: Acoustics — Measurement of room acoustic parameters — Part 3: Open plan offices, has now officially been published and can be downloaded as pdf using this link
New open plan office standard reaches publication stage
The new standard ISO 3382-3: Acoustics — Measurement of room acoustic parameters — Part 3: Open plan offices, has now officially been approved and moved on to publication stage 60.00 (2011-12-19), which categorises it as an international standard under publication. The main points of this standard as experienced by Acoustic Bulletin, is the fact that […]
What we see affects how we perceive sound at work
Daniel Västfjäll, Chalmers University in Sweden, is involved in a project where they study the connection between what we hear and what we see – regarding disturbing work related sounds. In a laboratory, the researchers conducted a series of experiments to see how the same sound, having the same volume, affect people differently depending on […]
EIAS Workshop – Open plan office acoustics
Claus-Moller Peterson (Grontmij) – photo by Martin Arvebro A workshop regarding open plan office acoustics was held at the Ecophon International Acousticians’ Seminar, in Bastad, Sweden, Sept 22nd. An opening lecture about open plan offices was held by Christina Bodin Danielsson entitled “The future office – a meeting place or something else? Which are the […]
Interview with Valtteri Hongisto – EIAS 2011
Ricardo Canto Leyton talks to Valtteri Hongisto from the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Indoor environment, Finland. Hongisto has recently performed a study in Finland, of which he spoke about during the conference. All interviews from EIAS are also available in HQ via the Youtube channel youtube.com/acousticbulletin The Ecophon International Acousticians’ Seminar was held on […]
