Modern Office acoustics

In office environments, acoustics has a major impact on people’s psychological and physical well-being, and thus on performance. The main challenge in the office is to design a sound environment where both communication and concentration can take place at the same time.
Work in open plan offices requires good speech clarity over shorter distances whilst also limiting the sound from spreading over longer distances to avoid disturbing other work groups. Short sound propagation in the room is thus vital for open plan offices. Acoustic ceilings are recommended, in order to minimize sound propagation, support speech clarity and lower the sound level in the room.
In open plan offices, people sometimes need a quiet space where they can work undisturbed, or to go to in order to not disturb others. As a general recommendation there should be at least one silent room available per 10 workers in an open space. Silent rooms can be created with system walls fitted flush against the acoustic ceiling. The acoustic ceilings in these rooms must be both sound-absorbing and provide acoustic insulation in order to achieve adequate soundproofing. Our recommendation is that the ceiling provides a sound insulation value of at least 40 dB.