A close link has been proven between high levels of productivity and concentration at work and favourable working conditions. Regulation ISO 3382-3:2012 represents the standard for measuring a room’s acoustics and the quality of a speaker’s privacy in open space offices. The quality of the speaker’s intelligibility and privacy, the distance of distraction and the diffuse sound field are all elements that contribute to the correct acoustic comfort. Different aspects should be assessed when analyzing the acoustics of an open space office, such as the distance between the work stations and the height of the partitions between the stations. The acoustic requirements can vary in this type of environment: for example, certain offices require good intelligibility to encourage communication among employees, so there should be fewer and lower partitions in this case. However, this will reduce the speaker’s privacy. Less privacy means more distractions. Therefore, in environments where concentration is more important, greater attention must be paid to the layout and to the sizes of the partitions.

The acoustic comfort of a meeting room is an essential requirement for productive and efficient meetings. If you actively take part in meetings held in rooms with poor acoustics, you will inevitably suffer from greater mental fatigue. You will surely have found yourself in work meetings and, from time to time, have felt like you needed a break for a few minutes. This is a sign of the onset of mental fatigue. In this situation with the wrong reverberation times, problems can occur with the sound waves reflected off walls, ceilings and the ground overlapping with the incident sound wave, causing a clear loss of intelligibility, a difficulty in following any dialogue and the subsequent mental fatigue of keeping high concentration levels. When designing a meeting room, we should pay the utmost attention to our choice of finishing materials to guarantee low reverberation times that are suitable for the activity taking place.

The speaker is not the only one responsible for making sure listeners are paying close attention. Rooms with poor acoustics inevitably lead to greater mental fatigue and consequently to a loss of concentration. When designing a conference hall, we should pay the utmost attention to our choice of finishing materials to guarantee low reverberation times that are suitable for the activity taking place. Furthermore, the position of the sound-absorbing material is important: targeted distribution of the acoustic absorption in the room must be planned to guarantee that the same quality of sound can be heard in every corner of the room. Therefore, the optimum reverberation time in a room used for listening to others talking is represented by the right compromise between achieving a sufficient level of sound to be effortlessly heard.

INTERIOR SOUND-ABSORPTION PANELS: WAITING ROOM SOLUTIONS

Waiting rooms can be various sizes and are located at the entrance to studios, offices, public businesses, museums, stations and airports. It is important to provide the people waiting in these areas with a comfortable and relaxing environment, allowing them to hold private conversations without the risk of being heard by those around them. By improving a room’s acoustic performance, we can offer high-quality living conditions for that room.