Ecophon Acoustic Bulletin

The "live" reports from the Ecophon 5th International Acousticians' Seminar are now done, as some of the attendees go home and others move on to Copenhagen for dinner, opera and a guided tour of Det Kongelige Teater.

Please take a look at some of the things that have taken place during these days in Helsingborg and Hyllinge.

• "How to specify Acoustic Design"
• "Exchange of Knowledge"
• Snapshots: Acousticians' Seminar
• Case Study: Corridors
• Struggling to Communicate in a Noisy Cafeteria
• The Future of STI
• Media Coverage of the Seminar
• Take a look at the Acousticians' Seminar
• Knowledge and Network
• "Create Sound Policies"
• "When I really want to think I go to the bathroom"
• “Change focus – noise is not a killer”

Posted by Fredrik at 3:16 PM | Permalink

Reported live from Ecophon 5th International Acousticians' Seminar

Örjan Johansson, Luleå University of Technology, had the pleasure of giving the closing lecture: Sound quality of indoor environments. Speaking about Acoustic design he invited the audience on a trip that took them from Johansson's office to the ghosts in his neighbours' bedroom.

Summing up, Johansson gave a couple of insights on "How to specify a good acoustic design". Listen to his concluding words about the last slide.

Download audio file to your computer (Right-click on the link, Save)

Posted by Fredrik at 2:44 PM | Permalink

Reported live from Ecophon 5th International Acousticians' Seminar

Yesterday Julie Dockrell, University of London, gave a speech titled School acoustics - from science via guidelines to practice. Being a psychologist, she looks at acoustics from a different perspective. She thinks the seminar is “an excellent learning experience”.

“The exchange of knowledge between different disciplines is very important. It helps you ask better questions. It also gives me an opportunity to discuss with acousticians of where psychology might or might not fit in. One acoustician said to me ‘Why do we need to bother about psychology?’. So an event like this is a way of helping other people to understand human behaviour.”

You’re from the academic world. Many attendees are working with this practically, consultants in room acoustics for example. What do you think about the balance between these dimensions here?

“Some of the presentations have been practical in orientation in terms of what you do in these kinds of context. People are also very good at asking real-world questions so I think that’s quite useful” says Julie Dockrell.

Posted by Fredrik at 1:53 PM | Permalink

Posted by Fredrik at 1:28 PM | Permalink

Reported live from Ecophon 5th International Acousticians' Seminar

Jasper Cole, Trelleborg Building Systems, presented a case study of a corridor (length 26 meters) that was modified in terms of the amount of absorption in the ceiling, placement of absorption as well as the effect of diffusing/scattering objects. Just before him Jian Kang, University of Sheffield, had introduced some of his key findings about acoustics and long spaces.

The issues related to long spaces such as corridors are well known, says Cole. But sometimes not dealt with as thoroughly as other space types. Listen to the interview with Jasper Cole.

Download audio file to your computer (Right-click on the link, Save)

Posted by Fredrik at 12:54 PM | Permalink

No, this is not an observation from the coffee break. But we have all been there - trying to have a conversation in a bar, restaurant or crowded hotel lobby. And this is exactly the situation John Culling of Cardiff University focuses his research on.

Reverberation, says Culling, has a detrimental effect on listeners' perceptual segregation of speech from interfering sounds, such as competing speech. He thinks this effect has been less well explored than the distorting effect of reverberation on speech, but it may be very significant in spaces designed for social interaction.

Listen to John Culling's conclusions from the presentation.

Download audio file to your computer (Right-click on the link, Save)

Posted by Fredrik at 10:18 AM | Permalink

Reported live from Ecophon 5th International Acousticians' Seminar

Hermann Steeneken, formerly from TNO and now working as a consultant, made an appreciated journey through the "Past, present and future of the Speech Transmission Index".

Listen to an interview with him about one of these aspects - the future - which will lead to an inclusion of new dimensions in the standard.

Download audio file to your computer (Right-click on the link, Save)

Posted by Fredrik at 10:07 AM | Permalink

Reported live from Ecophon 5th International Acousticians' Seminar

The seminar has attracted media attention in Sweden. For example, the regional radio has been on place to do interviews and the local newspaper "Helsingborgs Dagblad" today publishes a short article about the "140 sound experts" gathering in southern Sweden (wrong link).

Posted by Fredrik at 8:36 AM | Permalink

Reported live from Ecophon 5th International Acousticians' Seminar

The second half of the first day was mainly spent at Ecophon in Hyllinge. Super G, Lighting, Free hanging units and Vertical acoustic was initially presented.

Where the conference so far had offered overview, the workshops ending day 1 gave attendees an opportunity to deepen their knowledge in - and discuss - a wide variety of subjects.

Posted by Fredrik at 6:27 PM | Permalink

Reported live from Ecophon 5th International Acousticians' Seminar

There's always at least two dimensions to attending a professional event: What you learn and who you get to meet. Listen to a small selection of interviews with attendees, all of them confirming the important social side of the Acousticians' Seminar.

Download audio file to your computer (Right-click on the link, Save)

Posted by Fredrik at 5:34 PM | Permalink

Reported live from Ecophon 5th International Acousticians' Seminar

Marc Janssen of Ecophon (abstract) urged the participants to start working with Sound Policies.

“We have to put requirements on paper. Standards help a lot. Use them to create sound policies, a tool to maintain or guarantee the quality of a workplace concept. It can among other things be a discussion model between architects, consultants and end users.”

Ecophon has helped define sound policies in a number of large companies. Ericsson, Danske Post, Deloitte and Essent are some examples. Generally they include a description of the room, the goals of the room and both quality risks and demands, including STI, DL2, AC, PI and Rt.

A voice from the audience agreed with Janssen’s conclusion about the importance of defining sound requirements for single rooms or room types.

“Get acousticians involved at an early stage, rather than bringing them in to pick up the pieces when everything has gone wrong.”

Posted by Fredrik at 12:14 PM | Permalink

Reported live from Ecophon 5th International Acousticians' Seminar

James West of Johns Hopkins University (abstract) entered the stage to bring focus to the problem of noise in hospitals. In this interview with him, he says that “we’d better be paying more attention to noise in hospitals”.

He’s met people that have said “when I really want to think I go to the bathroom” because that’s the only place where it is quiet. Others tell him that they need to go home to log data.

The problem has been there for a long time. Certainly some professionals have known about it. But it hasn’t been known widely enough, thinks West. With his team he is now trying to identify the noise sources. “For the most part it’s people communicating”, says James West.

Listen to the interview.

Download audio file to your computer (Right-click on the link, Save)

Posted by Fredrik at 10:40 AM | Permalink

Reported live from Ecophon 5th International Acousticians' Seminar

Søren Peter Lund, Senior Researcher at the National Institute of Occupational Health in Denmark, was the keynote speaker at the seminar. He started talking about the growing concern about noise in the society, showing a model that basically treats noise as a toxic compound.

Lund’s view on models like that was clear. Noise is not a killer, said Lund, but serious aspects of noise are overlooked. It is for example a substantial cause of loss of motivation and creativity. Focus should change, he concluded, one important reason being the change in workplaces towards more cognitive work.

The questions after Lund’s keynote speech included one about noise in open offices. Listen to his response.

Download audio file to your computer (Right-click on the link, Save)

Read more in Søren Peter Lund’s abstract.

Søren Peter Lund’s publications.

Posted by Fredrik at 9:48 AM | Permalink

The Ecophon International Acoustician's Seminar is about to begin at Dunkers Kulturhus in Helsingborg, Sweden. People are taking their seats and so can you, as previously mentioned. We will be reporting live here from the seminar. Stay tuned for the first reports in just a short while.

Posted by Fredrik at 8:33 AM | Permalink

Follow our live reporting from the Ecophon International Acoustician's Seminar, Wednesday and Thursday 27-28 Sept..

Speakers and guests interviews, lecture summaries, snapshots of the ambiance, etc.

Both to read, to look at and to listen to!

Posted by Pierre Chigot at 11:32 AM | Permalink

Well-known acousticians such as John Bradley, Canada, Jian King, UK and Valtteri Hongisto, Finland will address this topic at the 5th Ecophon International Acousticians’ seminar in Sweden in a couple of weeks. Will you be there?

Open-plan offices and corridors are examples of room types where classical room acoustical methods for evaluation and calculation are inaccurate and sometimes irrelevant.

If you want to read their abstracts we provide the links here for you:

John Bradley abstract
Jian King abstract
Valtteri Hongisto abstract

Posted by Annica Rüsslander at 10:12 AM | Permalink

According to Michael Brill (see ref. below), founder of the North American workplace consultancy firm Bosti, the cellular (private) office layout encourages communication, compared to the traditional cubicle (open plan) layout.

- Could it be because the need for communication is greater than in an open area?

- Can it be so that it is easier to communicate more freely in those spaces?

- ...

Source: Brill, M. with Margulis, S., Konar, E., and BOSTI, Using Office Design to Increase Productivity. Buffalo, NY: published Vol. 1, 1984 and Vol. 2, 1985, 400 p.

Posted by Pierre Chigot at 9:02 PM | Permalink

Annex H is now added to the original version of the Finnish Standard SFS 5907, previously described in Ecophon Acoustic Bulletin and initially published 2004.

Annex H is informative and estimates the amount of Class A resp. Class C absorption material needed, as a percentage of the surface area of the space, with respect to various heights and reverberation times.

SFS 5907 uses reverberation time as unique descriptor of the room acoustics.

The conversion table is based on a Sabine model and applies therefore to simple, diffuse rooms.

Download Annex H in English and in Finnish

Click here to purchase of SFS 5907 in English.

Posted by Pierre Chigot at 8:27 PM | Permalink

The European Directive on Construction Protection against noise applies to all buildings occupied by people.

A specific paragraph addresses Reverberant Noise and how to handle it. Intesting is the use of equivalent absorption area.

extract from the Directive below:

Protection against excessive reverberant noise
"The noise within a room is a function, on the one hand, of the acoustic power level of the sources and of the geometric characteristics of the room, which are neutral with regard to products, and on the other hand, of the acoustic absorption coefficient of the materials comprising the different walls and the other furniture. This protection is characterised by the reverberation time T of the room or by the equivalent absorption area.

The equivalent absorption area can be calculated by:

sum(Siai) + sum(Aj)

where,
Si : surface areas with subscript i
and by frequency bands:
ai : sound absorption coefficient of the surfaces with the subscript i
Aj : equivalent sound absorption area of other surfaces than Si

This equivalent sound absorption area and the reverberation time T are expressed by their single number ratings or in frequency bands as appropriate."

Posted by Pierre Chigot at 9:04 PM | Permalink

Thanks to an ambitious education initiative from the Swedish government, deaf children in Banja Luka, Bosnia, were provided with cochlea implants.

As soon as they have been able to hear, the very poor room acoustics of the school became an obstacle to the children's further learning.

Ecophon has therefore donated 600 square metre acoustic ceiling and wall absorbers to the school, with very positive results.

Read the full press release >>

Posted by Pierre Chigot at 1:05 AM | Permalink

When the Dutch energy company Essent refurbished one of their open plan offices, it was decided that the room should be separated in several zones.

Based on Ecophon Wall Panel A, the architects created an expressive acoustic screen. 1200 mm wide and 2300 mm high, each panel is mounted in a metal frame and faced with an acoustically transparent screen printed fabric.

View image">View screen back

Posted by Pierre Chigot at 9:11 AM | Permalink