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 […]
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Acoustic systems also impact indoor air quality
Indoor air – part of IEQ We spend 90% of our time indoors; at home, in offices, schools and many other places. The indoor environment; sometimes referred to as IEQ, has a remarkable effect on our wellbeing. In fact, this blog is dedicated to how room acoustics impact us humans, one aspect of IEQ. Another aspect […]
Healing environments – Care for Sound
Care for Sound symposium on healing, healthcare and it´s relation to sound! Healing environments can greatly impact a patient’s hospital stay Here are two examples from the UK Patient Opinion website: “There were no doors only curtains, the lady next to me coughed all night and the two patients next to her were snoring. The […]
Acoustics will feature in a new groundbreaking research study!
New – Innovative Learning Environments & Teacher Change research project This global education research project, ILETC, will run for the next four years. It is an Australian Research Council Linkage Project, led by the University of Melbourne’s – Learning Environments Applied Research Network (LEaRN). What will the project do…. ILETC will explore how space […]
The (VERY) high cost of noise
FIGURES FROM FRANCE TO MAKE YOU DIZZY A study published last June by the French Agency Against Noise (Conseil National du Bruit) and the French Environment Agency (ADEME) tried, for the first time, to estimate the total cost of noise pollution in France. The result? 57.2 billion euros in social costs. And this figure […]
Internoise 2016 – Interview with PhD Gerd Marbjerg from Denmark
Internoise 2016 has just had its last presentation and we had the privilege to talk to one of the chairs of the Room Acoustic session. My name is Gerd Marbjerg, I live in Copenhagen and work at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU). I recently graduated my PhD on room acoustic simulations, which I did […]
BNAM 2016, Baltic-Nordic Acoustic Meeting in Stockholm
More than 140 acousticians and sound experts mainly from the Nordic countries gathered in June in Stockholm, Sweden, for the BNAM* 2016 (Baltic-Nordic Acoustic Meeting). The venue was KTH Royal Institute of Technology (https://www.kth.se/en) and of course staff from the Marcus Wallenberg Laboratory for Sound and Vibration Research (MWL) was heavily involved in this acoustic […]
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 […]
Evidence-based design in an Intensive Care unit
Evidence-based design in Finland The EVICURES project at Seinäjoki Central Hospital (Finland) was the first project to study evidence-based design (EDB) activities in Finland. The target of the project was to develop a new user-friendly design model for intensive care units (ICU) and to design a new ICU according to this model. A final report […]
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 […]
