Ecophon Acoustic Bulletin

Healthy children have the best chances for healthy, productive lives. As citizens of today’s world – not just as future contributors to society – children have the right to health protection and promotion (United Nations, 1989).

Just 5 weeks have left to the opening of Fifth Ministerial Conference on Environment and Health in Parma, Italy. At this event, ministers of health and environment and experts from countries that belong to WHO’s European Region will assess the progress made since last conference in Budapest.
In 2004 Fourth Conference in Budapest, according to the statement on the top of this article, accepted “Children’s Environment and Health Action Plan for Europe” (CEHAPE). This plan was prepared to develop policies and actions to achieve safe environment in which children could reach highest possible level of health.

Continue reading "CEHAPE" »

Posted by Mikołaj Jarosz at 11:39 AM | Permalink

From the 26th to 28th October, Ecophon will bring live reports from the Euronoise conference in Edinburgh on Acoustic Bulletin.

Stay tuned for regular updates, either through RSS feed or just visit www.acousticbulletin.com

WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING IN EDINBURGH?

Continue reading "ecophon live @euronoise" »

Posted by Marc Janssen at 2:11 PM | Permalink

Approximately 60 people attended the Ecophon Healthcare Conference on 9th September 2009 at The King’s Fund HO in London. Host for the day, Anthony Thomas, concept developer at Ecophon UK, brought together an appealing range of topics specifically aiming to support good design of our Healthcare premises.

Prominent speakers were a.o.
- Richard Mazuch of Nightingale & Associes
- Prof. Brian Duerden of the Department of Health
- Adrian Popplewell of Ramboll Acoustics

Please read further for the summary and the presentations

Continue reading "Acoustics at Healthcare conference" »

Posted by Marc Janssen at 12:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

A symposium on speech comfort, acoustics and learning was organised by Ljudmiljöcentrum (Listening Lund – The Sound Environment Centre at Lund University, Sweden) in cooperation with Saint-Gobain Ecophon and the Swedish Acoustical Society.

This was a very fruitful occasion, for people with various backgrounds and a keen interest in sound and acoustics, to exchange knowledge and experience.

Continue reading "JOINTLY ORGANISED SYMPOSIUM: SPEECH COMFORT, ACOUSTICS AND LEARNING" »

Posted by Carsten Svensson at 11:02 AM | Permalink

The Acoustic Guidance for UK Healthcare facilities and its practical implementation are just two of the topics being presented by expert speakers at a Healthcare Conference hosted by Saint-Gobain Ecophon on 9th September at The Kings Fund HQ in London.
Other topics include Design to control Healthcare Associated Infection, Sensory Design for Healing, the Hillingdon Hospital Pilot Ward and Sustainability in Community Healthcare.
Attendance to the conference is free for invited delegates, so if you wish to apply for one of the few remaining spaces please email the Conference Co-ordinator.

Continue reading "ECOPHON UK HEALTHCARE CONFERENCE, 9th SEPT" »

Posted by Anthony Thomas at 10:28 AM | Permalink

Last week in Kraków (Poland) the 16th International Congress on Sound and Vibration took place. This important event was organised this year by International Institute of Acoustics and Vibration (IIAV), the Polish Academy of Sciences, the Polish Acoustical Society (PTA), the AGH University of Science and Technology and Silesian University of Technology.
Despite difficult economic situation all around the world, congress atracted close to 800 participants from 53 countries. Detailed program with list of papers and authors can be found here.
Next, 17th ICSV will be organised in July 2010 in Cairo

Posted by Mikołaj Jarosz at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Coming up soon in New Zeeland is a symposium on tinnitus. This meeting will be a great opportunity for tinnitus clinicians and researchers to join forces and updated their knowledge on this subject.

Continue reading "2009 TINNITUS DISCOVERY in New Zealand" »

Posted by Carsten Svensson at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

An Acoustics Advisory Group led by the BCSE met in Manchester earlier this year to discuss input for the BB93 Review. Those in attendance were members of the British Council for School Environments who have knowledge of acoustics in learning environments. The key points raised at this meeting will inform our future position on acoustics as an organisation.

Click on link for the 10 key issues which have been put forward to the review panel:

Continue reading "BCSE Acoustics Advisory Group - BB93 Review" »

Posted by Colin Campbell at 1:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Auralization is becoming more and more important in acoustic design. Therefore a scientific event presenting the latest results in the field will be orginised. Moreover, it is ment to be a meeting place for auralization researchers, acoustic consultants and other people working with acoustic design.
The auralization symposium will be organized at the Helsinki University of Technology (TKK), Espoo, Finland, on 15th to 17th of June, 2009.

Read more here!

Posted by Carsten Svensson at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The Acoustics'08 Conference is now finished!

On behalf of all editors of Acoustic Bulletin we would like to thank all readers, the conference organisers, all those we have met at the Ecophon stand and especially those who we have had interviews with. We trust that your inputs will be of great value to many and we look forward to keep in touch. See you, and we hope you all have a great summer !!

Markku, Paulli, Tobias, Katja, Rainer, Jonas, Katrin, Martin, Per, Tina, Pierre, Colin, Anthony, Mikolaj, Guus, Mariëlle, Carsten, Erling and Marc

Posted by Marc Janssen at 2:52 PM | Permalink

Interview with John Hinton OBE
President of the Institute of Acoustics

Regarding Euronoise 2009, Edinburgh, Scotland 26-28 October 2009.
www.euronoise2009.org.uk
Email:euronoise2009@ioa.org.uk

By Colin Campbell, Concept Developer - Education, Ecophon UK and Ireland

Posted by Marc Janssen at 9:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Posted by Marc Janssen at 8:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Noise levels in hospitals are typically more than 15 dB(A) higher than target values given in guidelines (for example target values from WHO and the US Environmental Protection Agency). Furthermore, noise is often one of the top complaints from staff and patients. This is concluded in a review made by Hui Xie and Jian Kang at the University of Sheffield.

Continue reading "Influence of noise on patient’s sleep" »

Posted by Marc Janssen at 8:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Mr Fausto E. Rodriguez Manzo presented a paper about "sonic" character of architecture.

The author stated, that hearing should be understood almost equally to sight, as a sense used to perceive architecture.

Mr.Fausto E. Rodriguez Manzo
Metropolitan University in Mexico City.
E-mail:rfme@correo.azc.uam.mx

By Mikołaj Jarosz, Concept Developer - Education, Ecophon Poland.
E-mail:mikolaj.jarosz@saint-gobain.com

Posted by Marc Janssen at 8:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Directly after the session on healthcare and acoustics this afternoon we had a little talk with Dr Michael Phiri, one of the presenters.

Dr.Michael Phiri is Senior Research Fellow in the School of Architecture at the University of Sheffield.

By Marc Janssen, Concept Developer - Healthcare, Ecophon.

Posted by Marc Janssen at 8:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

On Tuesday Adrian Popplewell of Arup Acoustics presented a paper entitled "The Future of UK Hospital Design", and here he summarises for Acoustic Bulletin his involvement in the early drafting of HTM 08.01, the new Acoustic Guidance document for Healthcare. He also talks about the Drivers for Change in Healthcare over the coming years.

By Anthony Thomas, Concept Developer - Healthcare, Ecophon UK and Ireland.

Listen to the interview (2,27 minutes).

If you have questions or comments, please contact Anthony Thomas.

E-mail:anthony.thomas@ecophon.co.uk

Posted by Marc Janssen at 3:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Open office acoustics is today probably one of the most active architectural acoustics areas in terms of standardization.
Several standards, both national and international provide us with a powerful set of descriptors.

Interview (1,47 minutes) with Pierre Chigot, Concept Developer - Offices, Ecophon France.

By Tina Frisbæk Jensen, Concept Developer - Offices, Ecophon Denmark.

Posted by Marc Janssen at 9:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I am Tobias Angelbeck, Concept Developer for Acoustics in Health Care Premises, Ecophon Germany. I talked to Dr. Jo Solet – the clinical Instructor at the Harvard Medical School, Department of Psychiatry, Cambridge, MA (USA).

Right now she and her department are doing two researches.
One is a behavioural research project related to patients exposure to noise, with an outcome on measure of medical views.
The other is a virtual hospital in a neuroscience lab, studying how patients respond to specific real stimuli in a hospital environment.

Continue reading "Every decibel counts!" »

Posted by Marc Janssen at 3:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Interview (3,35 minutes)

By Marc Janssen / Concept Developer - Healthcare, Ecophon.

Posted by Marc Janssen at 3:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Tor Halmrast

Mr Tor Halmrast from Norway had a very interesting lecture about how to measure reverberation time, and how important it is to be a good “cougher”.

Tor works with music and acoustics. When he is on holiday, he often finds interesting rooms what he wants to measure. To measure room acoustic parameters today requires a lot of equipment that you seldom bring with you. That is why Mr Halmrast bought a small Wav-recorder and some balloons.

Continue reading "Simplified room acoustic measurement" »

Posted by Marc Janssen at 3:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It's 30 degrees and sunny so we choose to walk instead of taking the metro as we've been indoors allday. We wait to cross the traffic - it's noisy with horns beeping, busy with mopeds screeching by and hot but there is much to enjoy. Cutting through the backstreets we see some lovely buildings, markets and wary of crossing the busy roads even on a green man.

It's become quieter and we are conscious that Paris families are home eating while we walk past the open windows. Closer to the hotel children are out playing and enjoying a splash in the nearby fountains.It's a comfort to be living in a quieter area........

By Colin Campbell, Concept Developer - Education, Ecophon UK and Ireland.

Posted by Marc Janssen at 2:47 PM | Permalink

An interview (2,44 minutes) with C.J Ostendorf (Senior Projectleader) from Cauberg-Huygen Raadgevende Ingenieurs BV in Maastricht and Jack B. Evans (President) JEA Acoustics in Austin Texas.

By Marc Janssen, Concept Developer - Health Care, Ecophon.

Posted by Marc Janssen at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Professor Kang has been involved in many acoustic research projects with the University of Sheffield, and speaks to Acoustic Bulletin on his recent and current research in Healthcare environments and summarises his presentation entitled "A Systematic Review of the Influence of Noise on Patients Sleep in Intensive Care Units".

By Anthony Thomas, Concept Developer - Healthcare, Ecophon UK and Ireland.

Listen to the interview (3,04 minutes).

Posted by Marc Janssen at 9:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Claus Christensen works with research and development of the room acoustics software, Odeon. Odeon is a tool for room acoustic design and it helps you predicting the acoustic quality of spaces. This modelling software is also an auralisation tool allowing you to listen to how it will sound. Claus sees acoustic conferences as indeed important for meeting potential customers, receiving input from users and to upgrade his own knowledge and follow the latest development.

For more information on Odeon go to www.odeon.dk

By Carsten Svensson, Concept Developer - Education, Ecophon.

Posted by Marc Janssen at 8:39 AM | Permalink

Katrin Bergmark, Concept Developer - Healthcare, Ecophon Sweden.

This question formed the introduction to the overview of acoustic standards in Europe presented by Katrin Bergmark, Concept Developer at Ecophon in Sweden. Katrin talked about the current situation regarding sound in health care premises. Hospitals are often experienced as very noisy, leading to health effects on both patients and staff. In order to create a supporting sound environment we should aim to:
- secure privacy
- lower the noise levels
- facilitate good communication

And develop standards accordingly...
Click here to read Katrin's paper

Continue reading "Why do we need standards?" »

Posted by Marc Janssen at 3:29 PM | Permalink

Take a look at some snapshots from the exhibition part of the conference!
If you want to see Ecophon's booth, you need to look at the other show!

Posted by Marc Janssen at 3:06 PM | Permalink

This morning at 09:20 the session called healthcare acoustics & speech privacy – international perspectives started. Chaired by William Cavanaugh , David Sykes and Kerstin Persson Waye, the session provided an overview of emerging policies around the world.

Some of the conclusions are that the development of acoustic standards and guidelines for Healthcare facilities is really accelerating. David Sykes of ASA highlighted several waves of technological, economical and social trends that are responsible for that.

Continue reading "This morning's summary - speech privacy in healthcare premises" »

Posted by Marc Janssen at 3:04 PM | Permalink

Posted by Marc Janssen at 3:01 PM | Permalink

Posted by Marc Janssen at 8:08 PM | Permalink

Erling Nilsson, Acoustic Specialist, Ecophon.

Some reflections on the afternoon's session about acoustic for open-plan spaces. It was interesting to note that there exists some consencus concerning evaluation of the acoustical conditions in open-plan spaces. Measures like DL2 and DLf were frequently used in the presentations as well as methods for transforming these values into user friendly descriptors like e.g. radius of comfort. A good start of the conference and it will be really interesting to take part of coming events at one of the largest conferences ever.

Posted by Marc Janssen at 7:52 PM | Permalink

Already today the temperature was as expected in Paris during summer.
Perfect weather that is, please find here the forecast for July 1st.

Posted by Marc Janssen at 7:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Posted by Marc Janssen at 4:31 PM | Permalink

Ecophon has been invitated to present several papers at Acoustics '08.Below you'll find a list of presenters, Click on the names to see their abstracts:

- Erling Nilsson
- Carsten Svensson
- Katrin Bergmark
- Marc Janssen
- Pierre Chigot
- Gerhard Tiesler/Markus Oberdoerster (Mr. Tiesler will present)

Posted by Marc Janssen at 8:25 AM | Permalink

As the summer is coming nearer, so is the conference Acoustics'08 in Paris. The number of registrations is amazingly high already and growing every day. Just some facts and numbers about the conference:

Number of participants: 3777
Number of participating countries: 66
Number of abstracts: 3580
Number of oral sessions: 263
Number of poster sessions: 167

Click here to see how many of your countrymen are participating

Where will you be the first week of July? You can still register.
We hope to see you at Acoustics'08.

Posted by Marc Janssen at 12:00 PM | Permalink

The organisers of the acoustic conference “Acoustics’08 Paris” have just published the full programme on the conference website. To save you time exploring we have put together some quick links. Please find them below.

Planned sessions per day of the week (
To see all scheduled sessions per day click here and (and then click on technical programme).
Time Schedule per day
If you have the session codes check the exact time-schedule

Continue reading "Acoustics' 08 programme online now!" »

Posted by Marc Janssen at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

55th Open Seminar on Acoustics - most important annual acoustic conference in Poland will be organised this year by PTA's (Polish Acoustical Society) Wrocław section.
Conference will start on September the 8th in Piechowice near Szklarska Poręba and is planned for 5 days.
You can find more information on conference web page: english and polish version.

Posted by Mikołaj Jarosz at 12:26 AM | Permalink

On November 27th to December 1st 2007 the Acoustical Society of America held one of it's two annual meetings in New Orleans, Louisiana. Interesting areas covered in the conference were Speech communication, Speech perception, Architectural Acoustics, Education in acoustics and Noise. Hot items in acoustics in US right now are privacy in healthcare and environmental oriented programs like LEED.

Continue reading "Meeting with the Acoustical Society of America." »

Posted by Nils-Åke Andersson at 10:33 AM | Permalink

From June 29th till July 4th 2008 “Acoustics’08 Paris” will be held in the Palais des Congrès in Paris. The conference is being organized by the ASA, the EAA and the Société Française d’Acoustique (SFA). It will bring together experts from all fields of acoustics from around the world.

Room acoustics in schools, offices AND health care facilities

Besides sessions on room acoustics in schools and offices, this conference will also strongly focus on sound in Health Care facilities. Erica Ryherd (Georgia institute of Technology) and Marc Janssen (Ecophon Group) will chair one of the health care related sessions.

Continue reading "HAVE YOU REGISTERED FOR ACOUSTICS'08 IN PARIS?" »

Posted by Marc Janssen at 9:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Take the opportunity to stay in touch with the latest regarding school acoustics! The Speech and Hearing Group within the UK Institute of Acoustics (IOA) organise a meeting on speech and hearing in learning environments (29 January 2008) in London. If you want to know the programme and how to register, click here for the programme!

Posted by Carsten Svensson at 4:02 PM | Permalink

Posted by Marc Janssen at 12:30 PM | Permalink

Mike Barron from the University of Bath, UK, asks himself “when is a concert hall too quiet”? Sound levels in concert halls decrease with distance, but assessment of subjective loudness indicates that loudness judgement is more or less independent of distance from the stage. This leads to the conclusion that listeners compensate their judgement of loudness on the basis of what they see. So people at the back of the hall may compensate for the distance from the source!

Posted by Carsten Svensson at 12:10 PM | Permalink

Alexis Kurtz from Arup Acoustics in New York presented a paper on the issue of sustainable and/or green buildings. She exposed a valuable overview of various green building rating systems globally. Sustainable design covers more than just environmental aspects – it also includes economic and societal benefits, she claims. Acoustics is often not included, leading to poor acoustic conditions in green buildings.

An overview of current rating systems for green buildings:

BREEM
LEED
Green Guide for Health Care (GGHC)
HQE
CASBEE (in English)

Posted by Carsten Svensson at 10:52 AM | Permalink

Ruud Geerligs

The new Dutch Practical Guideline NPR 3438 was recently published and released. This guideline (or standard) covers the field of acoustic ergonomics and gives target values for the room acoustical environment in relation to disturbance of concentration and communication. NPR 3438 can be used for building and housing projects covering building types like offices, schools, sports halls, hospitals etc. Ruud Geerligs from SBR (Building Research Institute) in Netherlands presented a paper on this new Dutch guideline at ICA 2007 in Madrid (19th International Congress on Acoustics) together with Carsten Svensson from Saint-Gobain Ecophon. Ruud highlighted the background and the content of the Practical Guideline in one of the sessions.

Listen to the interview with Ruud Geerligs

Posted by Carsten Svensson at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Markus Oberdörster and Gerhart Tiesler

The acoustic environment of classrooms has a significant impact on new modern teaching scenarios. Today, in many countries, education and teaching is becoming more student centred and differentiated. Classrooms that might have worked well for decades might have to be acoustically “updated”. Markus Oberdörster from Ecophon Germany, together with Gerhart Tiesler from ISF University of Bremen in Germany, spent years investigating the room acoustic conditions of a large amount of German classrooms. Markus talked about acoustics and teaching styles, but also questioned the relevance of Sabine’s formula in non-diffuse conditions and reverberation time as the only acoustic descriptor to use. Gerhart took this further by revealing data on how poor room acoustics has an impact on teacher’s workload, i.e. heart rate as stress indicator. The consequence of acoustically good classrooms is reducing the stressor “noise”, giving higher activation, reducing fatigue and potentially better learning results by the students.

Posted by Carsten Svensson at 9:08 AM | Permalink

An international symposium on room acoustics was held in Sevilla , 10 - 12 September. The event was organised as an satellit symposium to the 19th International Congress on Acoustics in Madrid. Leading experties from all over the world presented "state of the art" in different field of room acoustics. The program consist of 6 keynote lectures and about 75 contributed papers. The main topics of the symposium were

Open air spaces acoustics
Design and room acoustics
Room acoustics simulation
Worship building acoustics

The keynotes lectures cover areas like auditory spatial impression in concert halls, the important role of the seat rows of the Hellenistic Theatre of Epidaurus, acoustics in churches, coupled rooms, room acoustics in virtual reality and finally, room acoustic simulations of multi-source environments. The first keynote lecture given by prof. Masayuki Morimoto was an excellent presentation of spatial and temporal structures and spectra of reflections on auditory source width and listener envelopment.

Saint-Gobain Ecophon AB presented two papers at the symposium concerning classroom acoustic:
Classroom acoustic measurement and evaluation, Nils-Åke Andersson and Erling Nilsson. Download file
Sound decay and steady-state level in rooms with ceiling treatment, Erling Nilsson and Nils-Åke Andersson. Download file

Posted by Erling Nilsson at 8:41 AM | Permalink

Emma Greenland, Bridget Shield, Markus Oberdörster

Listen to a caption of Markus Oberdörster's presentation on classroom acoustics:

Posted by Marc Janssen at 3:07 PM | Permalink

Alternative room acoustic descriptors for open offices
- progresses in standardization
Pierre Chigot, Saint-Gobain Ecophon SA, France

Pierre Chigot, Saint-Gobain Ecophon France

Pierre Chigot explained us about the limitations regarding the use of Reverberation Time for acoustical assessment of open-plan offices. Large variance between measurement positions at low frequencies and poor reactivity to changes in the acoustics due to the lack of diffusivity of the room is often seen.

As potential new acoustic descriptors in open offices the sound propagation from workstation to workstation, rate of spatial decay per doubling of distance (DL2) was suggested. DL2 has originally been applied to workrooms (through EN ISO 14257).
DL2 seems to be a consistent and reliable descriptor of open plan office acoustics and is now included in sound quality standards for buildings. A standard for field measurements of DL2 is needed, taking into consideration the physical characteristics of open plan offices, as well as speech characteristics (increased energy contents at low frequencies, voice levels, raised hearing sensitivity at high frequencies, etc).

Posted by Marc Janssen at 11:37 AM | Permalink

During the conference several persons are interviewed, some of them we even filmed. You can listen to or read the available interviews already and some movies taken during lectures will be available as well.

Check for updates regularly

INTERVIEWS
- John Bradley

- Sabine Schlittmeier

- Valtteri Hongisto

- Ruud Geerligs

- Markus Oberdörster

MOVIES
Infromation and availability will follow later

Posted by Marc Janssen at 11:00 AM | Permalink

Have a look at some more summaries on open-plan office acoustics.

"Determination of acoustic conditions in open offices and suggestions for acoustic classification"
Valtteri Hongisto, Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Turku, Finland

DL2 and “radius of distraction” as the future acoustic descriptors in open offices?

Speech privacy and the distraction efficiency of surrounding speech can be described by the speech intelligibility between workstations. Valtteri Hongisto stated that previous laboratory and field studies have concentrated on two neighbouring workstations while examination should instead concern the whole office space since noise complaints are not restricted to the nearest workstation. A new method to determine the acoustical conditions of the whole office space, including both short and long distances from the speaker was introduced. Through measurements in 15 offices Dl2 and “radius of distraction” were determined as principal descriptors. The measurements included background noise level, spatial decay of Speech
Transmission Index, STI, and spatial decay of A-weighted sound level of speech.

Listen to a caption of Valtteri's lecture

Continue reading "More open-plan office acoustics" »

Posted by Marc Janssen at 10:00 AM | Permalink

The world population has been multiplied by 1000 in 10.000 years.

It's obvious that if we want to safeguard the quality of living for future generations, we need to show environmental awareness and take meausres already today. A definition of sustainability is meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

“Acoustics ad the UK perspective on sustainable acoustics “
Peter Rogers - Cole Jarman Associates

According to Peter Rogers, associate at Cole Jarman Associates, sustainable acoustics is about appplying the principles of acoustics to remove the problems that obstruct a “One planet” or “sustainable” solution. During his presentation he showed 3 ways representing the UK approach regarding sustainability and acoustics.

• Regulations increasing (BB93)
• BREEAM assessments (download the factsheet)
• Code for sustainable homes

Rogers gave an overview of the situation in the UK and explained about the BREEAM's assessment for the performance of buildings. His answer to the question "What can acoustician do?", was as following.
• educate themselves and those in other disciplines about what we know so far about human aural effects on comfort, health and happiness
• perform research
• create benchmarks
• raise awareness
• share progress

Posted by Marc Janssen at 10:00 PM | Permalink

Sofar, so good.
The postive summer vibrations of the city of Madrid (35 degrees celsius) is definately also reflected on the mood of the participants of the conference. Sofar around 1500 people have registered.

Please find some pictures of the days sofar

Posted by Marc Janssen at 8:19 PM | Permalink

Reported from ICA Madrid

John Bradley - National Research Council, Montreal

Better speech privacy in open-plan offices can be most consistently achieved by a combination of quantitative design procedures and validation measurements, says John Bradley. This has not usually been done in the past because of the lack of convenient design and measurement tools. While signal-to-noise type measures such as the Articulation Index have been used to indicate the amount of speech privacy in North American offices, often Speech Transmission Index values have been used in European offices.

Piere Chigot interviewed John after his presentations
Listen to the interview (preferably use headphones or loudspeakers)

Continue reading ""How you improve speech privacy in open-plan offices"" »

Posted by Marc Janssen at 6:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Acoustic environment in Finnish offices, the summary of questionnaire studies
Riikka Helenius, Finnish Institute of Occupational Health

The result from a recent office study including 8 Finnish offices were presented. The acoustical conditions of the 8 offices represented typical Finnish offices. Noise and thermal conditions were experienced as the most disturbing work environment factors. The most distracting sound sources...

Continue reading "Take acoustic design more seriously." »

Posted by Marc Janssen at 6:16 PM | Permalink

Reported live from ICA Madrid

Sabine Schlittmeier

Sabine Schlittmeier, psychologist at Eichstätt University in Germany, presented her paper called Background speech varying in intelligibility - Effects on coginitive perfromance and perceived disturbance. Sabine presented three experiments, which tested the impact of background speech varying in intelligibility and/or level on basic cognitive functions (verbal short-term memory, sustained attention, verbal-logical reasoning).

Listen to the interview. (preferably use loudspeakers or earphones)

Continue reading ""highly intelligible background speech of 55 dB(A) impairs cognitive performance"" »

Posted by Marc Janssen at 8:00 PM | Permalink

ROOM AND BUILDING ACOUSTICS SESSION
After the welcoming programme in the morning, the afternoon was filled with a large number of lectures. One of the sessions was about "open-plan office acoustics".

Valtteri Hongisto and John Bradley chairmen of the session on open-plan office acoustics.

LINE-UP OF THE PRESENTATIONS "OPEN-PLAN OFFICE ACOUSTICS"

1. Acoustic environment in finnish offices - the summary of questionnaire studies - Riikka Helenius

2. Work performance and office noise - Do they correlate? - Valtteri Hongisto,

3. Background speech varying in intelligibility - Effects on cognitive performance and perceived disturbance - Sabine Schlittmeier

4. Alternative room acoustic descriptors for open offices – progresses in standardization - Pierre Chigot

5. Determination of acoustic conditions in open offices AND suggestions for acoustic classification - Valtteri Hongisto

6. A new model for acoustic design of open offices - Jukka Keränen

7. Designing and Assessing Speech Privacy in Open-Plan Offices - John Bradley

8. Open office acoustic design - multidimensional case studies - Fabien Krajcarz

9. Acoustic Design in the New Architectural Trend of "Exposed Structures" - Kenneth Roy

Later today you'll find some interviews and summaries about these experts and their lectures!

Posted by Marc Janssen at 9:02 AM | Permalink

From the 2nd until the 7th of September 2007, the 19th International Congress on Acoustics, is to be held in Madrid. The ICA conference is a 4-yearly conference on acoustics and is considered to be the biggest of its kind.

Ecophon will througout the week arrange live coverage of the event through Acoustic Bulletin.

Follow the live reporting of our experiences, speakers and guests interviews, lecture summaries, snapshots of the ambiance, etc.

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

We look forward to meet you on the web!

Continue reading "ECOPHON LIVE AT ICA MADRID 2007" »

Posted by Marc Janssen at 9:00 AM | Permalink

The Speech and Hearing Group is a specialist group within the UK Institute of Acoustics (IOA) and they will organise a meeting on speech and hearing in learning environments (29 January 2008). Speech and hearing is crucial for learning in educational environments. Acoustics and noise have a direct effect on speech perception and vocal stress in the classroom etc. The meeting will be of interest to anyone concerned with providing optimal conditions for speech and hearing in schools and other learning establishments. For more details, read here!

Posted by Carsten Svensson at 11:16 AM | Permalink

As previously announced, specific sessions on Open plan office acoustics respectively Call Centre acoustics took place yesterday 4th July at the European Forum on Effective Solutions for Managing Occupational Noise Risks in Lille (France).

The sessions gathered approxilately 80 persons and vivid disussions took place after the presentations.

Continue reading "Successful open plan office acoustics sessions at Noise at Work Forum in Lille, France" »

Posted by Pierre Chigot at 11:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Many acousticians and researchers will gather at one or more of the bigger acoustic conferences this summer. Noise at work will be in Lille, France, Spain will have the ICA conference in Madrid and ISRA in Sevilla. Ecophon will present several papers during the conferences. Some of the abstracts can already be accessed:

Noise at Work:
Marc Janssen - room acoustic interventions at a Thorax ICU
Pierre Chigot - Alternative room acoustic descriptors for open plan offices - progression in standardization

ICA:
Markus Oberdörster - "Modern teaching" needs modern conditions – room acoustics as and ergonomic factor

Carsten Svensson - Duth Practical Guideline NPR 3438 - Ergonomics - Noise at the workplace
Pierre Chigot - Alternative room acoustic descriptors for open plan offices - progression in standardization

ISRA:
Erling Nilsson - Sound decay and steady-state level in rooms with absorbent ceiling treatment
Nils-Åke Andersson - Classroom acoustics measurement and evaluation">

Posted by Marc Janssen at 2:19 PM | Permalink

April 25 (2007) it is time for the 12th Annual International Noise Awareness Day! If you want to know what you can do look here. Activities to raise the awareness of noise will take place all around the world; for example in Germany.

Posted by Carsten Svensson at 11:17 AM | Permalink

Ecophon co-organised yesterday with AFNOR, the French standardization body, a seminar called “Office Acoustics” (see invitation). A broad representation from various stakeholders of the office sector confirmed the interest for tools to support the acoustic planning of offices. NF S31-080 is definitely one.

Continue reading ""Acoustics in offices" gathered more than a hundred in Paris" »

Posted by Pierre Chigot at 11:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

An International Symposium on Room Acoustics, ISRA 2007, will be arranged as a satellite symposium to ICA 2007. It will take place in Sevilla, Spain, on September 10-12.
Deadline for submission of abstracts is May 15th. For further information, see http://www.congreso.us.es/isra2007/sevilla/index.php

Posted by Nils-Åke Andersson at 8:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

The International Congress on Acoustics, ICA, will take place in Madrid, Spain, on September 2-7. The theme of the congress is "Acoustics for the 21st century".
Deadline for submitting abstracts is April 1st. For more details, see http://www.ica2007madrid.org

Posted by Nils-Åke Andersson at 7:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Inter-noise 2007 will take place in Istanbul in Turkey on August 28-31. The main theme for the conference is "Global Approaches to Noise Control".
Abstracts have to be submitted before March 19, but maybe a shorter extension will be offered.
For more information, see http://www.internoise2007.org.tr/default.asp

Posted by Nils-Åke Andersson at 4:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The city of Lille in France will be hosting the first European Forum on Effective Solutions for Managing Occupational Noise Risks from the 3rd till the 5th of July 2007. The Forum intends to contribute to increasing the dissemination of existing knowledge in all sectors affected by occupational noise. In other words, the Forum aims at reducing the gap between solution providers and potential users.

This event is organized by the Institute of Noise Control Engineering of Europe (INCE/Europe), the French Information Centre on Noise (CIDB) and the Organization for Prevention and Control of Industrial and Professional Risks (AINF). In collaboration with a.o. EAA, I-INCE and SFA.
Ecophon France is member of the programme committee.
For more info and registration possibilities please check Lille Forum 2007

Posted by Marc Janssen at 11:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Last week Inter-Noise 2006 took place in Honolulu and the week before American society of acoustics, ASA, had a big event together with the Japanese acoustical association, JAS, at the same place. As usual some standardization committees convined during the conferences.
Nils-Åke Andersson at Ecophon was invited to participate with a paper in the field of classroom acoustics and an abstract written together with Erling Nilsson and Carsten Svensson was sent and accepted. Download file
Unfortunately none of the authers were able to participate. The Inter-Noise conference was sponsered by Saint-Gobain Isover group including Ecophon and an exhibition booth were on place.

Posted by Nils-Åke Andersson at 10:44 AM | Permalink

During the Baltic-Nordic Acoustics Meeting in Gothenburg this November a workshop on classroom acoustics took place which I had the pleasure to organise. The workshop started with a presentation of four prepared papers. Among the papers, Nils-Åke Andersson presented the planning of an extensive study of the acoustics in classrooms initiated by Ecophon. In this project several classrooms are investigated both in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Germany. A large amount of data will be collected. Different types of ceiling treatments are tested and subjective and objective evaluations of the classrooms are carried out. At the workshop I presented preliminary results from a listening test on speech recorded in some of the classrooms.
The last part of the workshop was devoted an open discussion. Acoustical conditions in open-plan premises for education were an item that many of the participants took an active interest in.
The presentations will be soon be presented here

Posted by Erling Nilsson at 12:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (16)

In the beginning of November Ecophon sponsored and participated in BNAM at Chalmers Institute of Technology in Gothenburg on the west coast of Sweden. This was a 2-days event organized by the Swedish Acoustical Society (SAS) and the Scandinavian Vibration Society SVIB). About 250 persons participated, mainly from the Nordic countries. Presentations will soon be available at http://www.svib.se.
Ecophon presented 4 papers
- A reverberation time formula for rooms with ceiling treatment, by Erling Nilsson :Download file
- Speech privacy descriptors for offices - Do they work in Europe, by Pierre Chigot.
- Classroom acoustics. Systematic measurements, Nils-Åke Andersson. Download file
- Classroom acoustics. A listening test, by Erling Nilsson. Download file
One of the most interesting presentations was the key note speech from prof. Stig Arlinger from Linköping University in Sweden, with the title "Speech recognition in noise".
The day before BNAM an interesting symposium took place, "Man and Noise", organized by the Swedish noise network. Abstracts and powerpoint presentations from this symposium can be downloaded from the following link http://www.noisenetwork.org/bnam2006.htm
Next BNAM will take place 2008 in Reykjavik at Iceland.

Posted by Nils-Åke Andersson at 10:30 AM | Permalink

Last week, I visited a Health care conference in the UK, London to be exact, called Delivering community healthcare buildings.
At this conference, relevant healthcare design experts and key architects in this sector got together to provide a comprehensive overview of the challenges and opportunities involved in the design of a number of different community healthcare buildings.

Charlotte Ruben, representing White Arkitekter from Sweden presented the delegates a new attitude towards designing Health care premises, one in which the sound and healing environment is the main aim. It will be very interesting to follow the mega project she and her colleagues are working on: it's the design of the new Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm. Expectations are high since this is going to be the state of the art. 1 biliion Euro's, 300.000 m2.
The high awareness for quality in Sweden will hopefully result in good room acoustic discussions. To be continued...

The entire program is available here

Posted by Marc Janssen at 5:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

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 | Comments (16)

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 | Comments (2)

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 | Comments (17)

Posted by Fredrik at 1:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (18)

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 | Comments (16)

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 | Comments (18)

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 | Comments (1)

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 | Comments (17)

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 | Comments (17)

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 | Comments (16)

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?

Continue reading "Room acoustic measures for non-sabine spaces" »

Posted by Annica Rüsslander at 10:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)

"Sound and Vibration", the next Baltic-Nordic Acoustics Meeting 2006 will take place in Gothenburg, Sweden, on 8 – 10 November. A Satellite symposium "Man and Noise" will be held 8 November in co-operation with the Swedish National Institute for Working Life, NIWL.

The conference comprises various sessions, out of which: Room acoustics, Soundscape - support to health and Acoustic and vibration technology development

Continue reading "Baltic-Nordic Acoustics Meeting, 8-10 November" »

Posted by Pierre Chigot at 9:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

How accurate are Speech Intelligibility measurements in practice?

Bristish Institute of Acoustics organises a thematic meeting on that matter 26th September. IOA writes: "Some measurements appear to be more robust than others. (...) Which metrics are most reliable?If you are involved with any form of speech intelligibility measurement or are interested in the audibility of speech in any sort of environment, then this meeting is a must."

Full programme details

Posted by Pierre Chigot at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (17)

Ecophon International Acoustician's Seminar will take place end of September in Helsingborg, Sweden.

A few seats are still available!

To get access to the registration zone, please contact Eric Henningsson, Project Manager.

Posted by Pierre Chigot at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)

The seminar, already presented here, has been allocated a corner on the Internet: you will find: registration, seminar programme, information about Helsingborg, miscellaneous, contacts, etc.

www.ecophon.com/acousticiansseminar

Posted by Pierre Chigot at 3:45 PM | Permalink

The Euronoise room acoustics session included 7 lectures last wek in Tampere (Finland). Important developments are taking place in that field. Promising!

Continue reading "Room acoustics developments pointed out at Euronoise last week" »

Posted by Pierre Chigot at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (18)

The classroom acoustics session at Euronoise consisted of 9 lectures on the 31st of May. Classroom acoustics was confirmed as a vivid area at the crossroad of room acoustics and occupational health.

Continue reading "Increasing awareness of noise levels in educational premises at Euronoise in Tampere" »

Posted by Pierre Chigot at 9:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)

Speech privacy will be addressed under five key lectures at the 151st Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America to be held 5–9 June 2006, Providence, Rhode Island, USA.

Continue reading "5 key lectures on speech privacy at next ASA conference" »

Posted by Pierre Chigot at 11:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (17)

Ecophon interacts daily with acoustic consultants throughout the world. To further enhance this collaboration Ecophon will arrange a 5th International Acousticians' Seminar in Helsingborg in Sweden at the end of September 2006. The theme of the seminar will be “Innovations in room acoustics”.

Continue reading "Ecophon 5th International Acousticians' Seminar" »

Posted by Pierre Chigot at 4:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (16)

Privacy and confidentiality are given more and more importance in Europe, USA and other countries around the world. 2006 has been chosen to celebrate the 50th anniversary of speech privacy, a discipline pioneered by Leo Beranek and colleagues beginning in 1955.

Continue reading "50 years of speech privacy" »

Posted by Pierre Chigot at 2:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Man and Noise network had its first meeting in Stockholm end of November 2005.
The network gathers Swedish research institutes conducting research on sound mostly from an occupational perspective. It aims at facilitating cross-diciplinary research, increase quality of research projects and help to rationalise research efforts within the field noise and man.

Highlights from the ca 15 lectures made:

Continue reading "Man and noise network - firsts meeting in Stockholm" »

Posted by Pierre Chigot at 9:55 PM | Permalink

As presented in the previous issue of the Ecophon Acoustic Bulletin the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work is focusing on the issue of noise control in the work place through campaigning and organising activities in various EU countries.

Continue reading "“Stop that noise”: What was done?" »

Posted by Fredrik at 3:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The University of New South Wales in Australia has been awarded for their website about music acoustics by the magazine Scientific American.

Continue reading "Web resource on music acoustics rewarded" »

Posted by Fredrik at 3:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This year's European Week for Safety and Health at Work (will culminate 24-28 October 2005) will focus on the issue of noise at work, under the slogan, 'Stop that noise!', with the tagline, 'Noise at work - it can cost you more than your hearing'.

Read more

Posted by at 11:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Do you want to stay updated with the latest knowledge and increase your number of contacts? Participate to an acoustic conference!

Check the conference calendar

Posted by at 11:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Carsten Svensson: “Accessibility for disabled people with regards to acoustics – an overview of the situation in Sweden”
Nils-Åke Andersson: “Solutions for sound insulation including suspended ceilings”
We look forward to see you in Rio at Inter-Noise 2005!

Posted by Fredrik at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Are you involved in the process of creating good work places in offices? Ecophon will arrange a one-day seminar in Copenhagen on May 12, 2005.

Continue reading "Future offices – people and environment" »

Posted by Fredrik at 11:05 AM | Permalink