Ecophon Acoustic Bulletin

HRF in Sweden have recently posted nine sound-smart steps to a conversation-friendly Sweden

http://www.acousticbulletin.com/EN/2010/01/huge_media_attention_in_sweden.html

1. Become sound smart. How is the sound environment around you? It is time to start thinking about our sound environment, acquire knowledge and consider the call for conversation friendly Sweden! Read more about what HRF want and what you can do on www.befriasamtalet.se.

2. Use your consumer power.
Does it sound bad at a restaurant? Do you have difficulty in understanding what is being said? Then you're probably not alone. So dare to say and choose to visit cafes, restaurants and other places where the sound environment is good. Your choice will give you power as a customer and consumer.

3. Make the sound environment into an integral part of environmental policy.
Four million people in Sweden have a problem with bad sound environments. Yet it is one of our most overlooked environmental issues. Now we need policies and action plans for a community with a good sound environment.

4. Increase and sharpen laws, regulations and guidelines.
Vague wordings and weakness rules allow developers, municipalities, employers and others responsible to give low priority to the sound environment. It is time for a shake-up. Government, and parliament must ensure that we have strong, clear regulatory framework.

5. Strengthened requirements for facilities for education and childcare.
Sound environment has become the children's major environmental problem. Today, there is such an uproar in schools, preschools and after-school which both children and staff suffer. This cannot continue and now we have regulations that require an optimal acoustic environment in the locations of education and childcare.

6. Make the sound environment into an integral part of OSH.
How does it really work? In the office? In the lunchroom? Too few employers and unions have realised that noisy environments is a widespread problem that impairs efficiency, comfort and health. Even fewer do anything about it. It is high time to change that.

7. More conversation friendly cafes / restaurants.
Good food and good company in friendly sound environments. The Swedish people really want this! Cafes, restaurants and other similar industries must start taking the sound environment seriously.

8. Educate key people.
Architects and interior designers, environmental health inspectors, building inspectors, property managers and many other professionals need more knowledge about the noise environment. Education is the key to conversation-friendly rooms.

9. More research on the sound environment.
Loud noise damages our hearing, we know relatively little about this but what about the sound that disturbs us and lasts for a long time? How can different sound environments get better? We get more and more answers but still have more questions. Now we need more research on our most common sound environment problems.

For more info click here to see our previous post on this topic

Posted by Colin Campbell at 5:52 PM | Permalink

This year will be the start of a doctoral study to be performed at an ICU department at Södra Älvsborgs Sjukhus in Borås, Sweden.

The aim of the project is to study if a holistically designed patient room in a general intensive care unit affects (supports well-being of) the occupants compared to a traditional ICU patient room. The contribution of the sound envrionment will be among the key factors to be studied.

The project is funded by Sahlgrenska Academy, at Gothenburg University and collaborates with the Institute of Architecture at Chalmers University.

The project has two main challenges:
1. to produce knowledge about issues in a high-tech environment that could be crucial and have a healing effect on people who suffer from severe illness or injury, the ones who visit them and the staff working there
2. to develop new sustainable methods and products that will improve the ICU care environment

Topics to be investigated are:
- the need for analgesica and sedation drugs
- heart rate
- breathing frequency
- sleep and ICU delirium
- lenght of stay and staff's judgement.

One of the patient rooms will be planned and designed according to special holistic principles, comprising position of technology, furniture textiles, light and sound envrionment, whereas another room will remain the same (control room)

Both quantitive (surveys, physiological parameters, protocols) and qualitive (interviews, video recordings, observations) research methods will be used

among the project members are:
- Högskolan Borås
- Fagerhult
- Input Interior
- Design med Omtanke
- Ecophon

Posted by Marc Janssen at 3:46 PM | Permalink

In the ISO working group WG 19 a work has been started to produce a new measurement standard as a part three in the ISO 3382 series. To combine the experience from North America concerning cellular office design with the European open-plan office design is a challenge for the ISO working group.

The increasing use of open-plan solutions for offices has highlighted the problems related to the acoustical conditions in these environments. In North America the long experience and use of open-plan offices has resulted in several standard procedures to secure speech privacy between working places, especially in the common used open-plan offices with a cellular structure often referred to as cubicles. In Europe the purpose of using an open-plan structure is often to create flexible solutions that support communication between employees and working teams but also gives possibility for concentrated work. In these environments it is normally not a realistic goal or even the intention to create high speech privacy between neighbouring work places. However, it is still important to prevent sound propagation over long distances. These problems have emphasized the need of acoustical evaluation methods covering different type of open-plan offices design.

ISO 3382 consists of three parts under the general title, Acoustics - Measurement of room acoustic parameters:
- Part 1 : Performance spaces;

- Part 2 : Reverberation time in ordinary rooms;

- Part 3 : Open plan spaces.

For Part 3, open plan spaces, will look at measurements in furnished open-plan offices, the measurement procedures, equipement, required coverage and the evaluation of data and presenting the reports.

The standard is intended as an assesment tool to access the quality of medium to large size open-plan offices.

Posted by Colin Campbell at 4:38 PM | Permalink

The 2009 Revision of the so called “Unfallverhütungsvorschrift Kindertageseinrichtungen” (GUV-V S2) includes a new paragraph regarding building and room acoustics. Whenever you build or refurbish a Kindergarten the room acoustic is a must have for the first time in Germany. It is no matter if it is a public or private Kindergarten the “Unfallverhütungsvorschrift” is obligatory.

The UVV-V S2 is linked to the “Regel Kindertageseinrichtungen” which describes which regulations you have to fullfill. The most important in this case is the german DIN18041-2004. But also a brochure “Noise in Educational Institutions“ from a working-group of the german federal agency for occupational work and saftey (Bundesanstalt für Arbeitsschutz und Arbeitsmedizin) is mentioned.

This Brochure describes which acoustic values should be achieved based on research findings.The main goal should be an excellent speech intelligibility: The STI should be higher than 0.75 and the reverberation time should be reduced to a value under 0.5 seconds. As a practical solution for standard rooms the recommendation is an acoustic ceiling (on the whole ceiling) with a material of the highest absorption class A (DIN EN ISO 11654). Furthermore it is mentioned that there is no use for reflecting areas, because of the modern educational styles which are replacing the frontal teaching.

Please click here to download the brochure "Noise in educational premises"

Posted by Holger Brokmann at 2:51 PM | Permalink

INTER-NOISE 2010, the 39th International Congress and Exposition on Noise Control Engineering, will be held in Lisbon, Portugal, from 13-16 June, 2010. The Congress is sponsored by the International Institute of Noise Control Engineering (I-INCE), and is co-organized by the Portuguese Acoustical Society (SPA) and the Spanish Acoustical Society (SEA).

Click here for the conference website

The Congress venue will be the modern Lisbon Congress Centre, located in north bank of the River Tagus in a new rehabilitated tourist waterfront area, full of amazing gardens and esplanades.

Amongst the papers being read, Ecophon are directly involved in three and indirectly with several more;

- Erling Nilsson, Ecophon (Sweden)
will present a paper regarding Classroom measurements.

- Pierre Chigot, Ecophon (France)
will present a paper looking at balancing good acoustics whilst utilising the structural thermal mass of the building.

- Nils-Åke Andersson, Ecophon (Sweden)
will present a paper about the Round Robin Investigation concerning test code ISO 354

Posted by Colin Campbell at 2:22 PM | Permalink

The 159TH MEETING OF THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA AND NOISE-CON 2010

Is held between 19–23 April 2010 in Baltimore, Maryland.

The Society holds two meetings each year, normally in the U.S. and Canada. At each meeting, invited and contributed papers and poster presentations usually number around 700 and reflect the diversity and interests of the membership. Tutorials, lectures, technical and standards committee meetings, are regular features, along with a variety of social programmes.

This year Markus Oberdörster from Ecophon in Germany has been invited to give the Knudsen lecture on the first day which will centre around Markus's Phd study into acoustic ergonomics of schools.

http://asa.aip.org/web2/asa/abstracts/search.may10/asa14.html

Dr Markus Oberdörster

1aAAb1. Communication behavior of pupils and teachers in highly absorbent classrooms: A pleading for room acoustic comfort in schools.
Session: Monday Morning, Apr 19
Time: 11:05

Author: Markus Oberdoerster
Location: Saint‐Gobain Ecophon GmbH, Taschenmacher Str. 8, 23566 Lubeck, Germany, markus.oberdoerster@ecophon.de
Author: Gerhart Tiesler
Location: Univ. of Bremen, 28334 Bremen, Germany

Abstract:

This lecture refers to an interdisciplinary research project conducted 2001–2005 by acousticians, pedagogues, and occupational scientists at the Bremen University. It investigates the kind of work and communication behavior in elementary school classrooms and the influence that is given by the acoustic environment. Using a database of 175 examined lessons an analysis is made of how different kinds of work (frontal lessons vs differentiated lessons) have an effect on the sound level in the classroom. Parameters are discussed, which can describe classroom acoustics appropriately. Also discussed are how altered room characteristics (e.g., increased absorption, shortened reverberation time, and improved speech intelligibility) affect the sound level in the context of each kind of work. A methodical examination of the database allows an assessment of mean values but also of the detailed teaching phases, as characterized by certain pedagogical factors. The results provide the basis for discussion of stress and work demands of teachers. 10 1612
Click on the links below for more information;
http://www.acousticbulletin.com/EN/2007/09/modern_conditions_for_modern_t.html

http://www.acousticbulletin.com/EN/2006/12/acoustic_ergonomics_of_schools.html

http://asa.aip.org/baltimore/calendar.html

Posted by Colin Campbell at 2:46 PM | Permalink