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Kerstin Persson-Waye (Gothenburg University) - photo by Martin Arvebro
The hospital gives acoustical challenges that affect both patients, staff and the hospital as a business facility. The aim of the workshop was to discuss the challenges of the hospital soundscape and how they can be addressed.
Continue reading "Hospital Acoustics at the EIAS 2011 healthcare workshop " »
Saint-Gobain Ecophon is organising its 6th Ecophon International Acousticians´ Seminar in Sweden (September 21-22) and a great variety of speakers from many different countries will communicate the latest knowledge connected to room acoustics.
EIAS 2011 is a seminar/conference focusing on room acoustics and the effect of sound on people. Most speakers and participants are acousticians or other professionals working with different aspects of sound and acoustics.
Continue reading "Ecophon International Acousticians' Seminar 2011 (EIAS 2011)" »
This very popular session was co-chaired by Valteri Hongisto and J.y.Jeon.
I caught up with Erling Nilsson to discuss an overview of the session after reading his paper. The session consisted of 5 papers, 2 of which were invited papers. 3 of the papers concerned the evaluation of the acoustics and measures related to sound propagation in open plan offices. In particular measures related to sound distribution curves; DL2, DLf & LpA,S,4m.
The 4th paper focused on full scale office in labratory conditions investigating the effect of screen heights, workplace locations and background and masking noise.
The final paper was actually a field investigation of an open-plan school in Iceland
Continue reading "Open-plan session - Forum Acusticum 2011" »
Danish Acoustical Society will host acousticians from all over the world to participate in the 6th Forum Acusticum in Aalborg. This conference is held every three years and provides the opportunity for all acousticians to meet and discuss recent advances in their fields of interest.
Continue reading "Forum Acusticum 2011 - Aalborg - Denmark" »
Drs. Marcus Oberdorster and Gerhart Tiesler from Germany were invited to speak at the distinguished Knudsen lecture at the 161st meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Seattle Washington, USA.
The research which Markus and Gerhart presented was a combined project looking at "acoustic ergonomics in schools" which looks at classroom acoustic conditions for modern teaching and learning and how good classroom acoustics reduce teacher workload and stress.
Gerhart shares with us how it was received and how it may influence the present noise level upper limits....
Continue reading "Sharing EU classroom acoustic research in the US" »
From May 10-12 many are participating at the conference on future hospitals and other healthcare premises in Copenhagen.
Ecophon is also participating and active on twitter about what's hot and what's not. Apart from workshops, debates and study visits, the participants will have an opportunity to listen to a wide range of lectures perfomed by amongst others:
- Dr. Michael Phiri, Sheffield University Architecture (UK)
- Professor Jose M Martin-Moreno and Dr Hans Kluge WHO
- Marte Lauvsnes, Hospital Planner, SINTEF (Norge)
- Phil Nedin, Leader of Global Health Care Business, Arup (UK)
- Sylvia Leydecker, 100% Interior (Germany)
- Kunibert Lennerts, Professor, University of Karlsruhe, (Germany)
- Ivar Myrstad, Koordinator, St. Olavs Hospital (Norway)
- Grant R. Mills, Loughborough University (UK)
More infor can be found on the conference website
Noise Action Week 2011 takes place from 23-27 May and will
focus on noise and schools — the importance of a healthy
noise environment for children and teachers — and noise in
our gardens and open spaces.
Continue reading "Noise Action Week 2011 - focus on noise and schools" »
On 30 March - 1 April 2011 a three day Master Class "Room Acoustic Measurements and 3D Auralisation" will take place, headed by dr. Lamberto Tronchin. At the moment there are still spots available.
Upcoming Master Class:
Building Acoustics by prof. ir. E. Gerretsen, 25 - 27 May 2011
Continue reading "Master Class Room Acoustic Measurements and 3D Auralisation" »
“The School Acoustic Design Symposium" at Westminster, London on Tuesday 7th December, was chaired by Peter Rogers of Cole Jarman and brought together some of the UK’s leading architects and acousticians in the field of education design. As sponsor of this unique event, we are pleased to provide you with the presentations from the audiologist, acousticians and architects, delivered on the day.
To watch the forum discussion please click here
Continue reading "Groundbreaking School Acoustic Design Symposium" »
In the construction sector, consideration of acoustics is important during all stages of a project. An event which can provide important insights can be the Acoustics in Construction 2010 conference. Here you to share best practice, benchmark against regionally successful projects, explore regulatory and contractual requirements and discover the latest innovations in materials and technologies. Acoustics in Construction 2011 is in the planning stage and will take place in Hong Kong.
Early Bird closure date extended until: Midnight Wednesday 14 July!
The New Zealand Acoustical Society is delighted to invite you to attend the International Symposium on Sustainability in Acoustics (ISSA 2010) being held in Auckland, New Zealand 29-31 August 2010.
Continue reading "ISSA 2010 symposium on sustainability - Early bird closure date!" »
Guus Klamerek discusses Lau Nijs' paper following the "Classroom Acoustics" session yesterday. Lau's paper explored "Optimum absorption and vocal output in classrooms with U50"
Continue reading "Interview with Lau Nijs from the Netherlands" »
In the atrium of the conference building, Katrin met up with Lotta Johansson, who is a PhD study with Sahlgrenska Academy at Gothenbrug University. Lotta will make a presentation on the relation between sound and ICU delirium in intensive care units.(ICU). Katrin is particularly interested in her lecture and Lotta likes to share her experience from the study with Acoustic Bulletin. Listen to the interview with Lotta.
An interview with prof. Anna Preis, Departament of Environmental Acoustics, Institute of Acoustics, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland.
You presented at Internoise 2010 a paper entitled “Speech intelligibility as an annoyance index”. What’s the reason of such idea?
- Noise annoyance is very subjective matter and individual estimations can vary a lot depending on mood or personal tolerance to noise of subjects. Moreover...
Berit Lindahl is one of the two projectleader for a research programme called healing environments in intensive care units. The programme is a cooperation between Borås University College and Sahlgrenska Academy, both in Sweden.
We asked Berit to give us a little bit of insight in the different studies that are planned.
Continue reading "Healing environments in intensive care units" »
It's hard to not have heard the sound of vuvuzela's, to some the most annoying sound in the world. Judge yourself and listen here
Read here the explanation of an acoustic expert on how the Vuvuzela's make their sound.
Continue reading "The sound of Vuvuzela's - The most annoying sound in the world" »
Per Larsen spoke with Jesper at Inter-Noise about his research project in Copenhagen regarding "Risk factors of noise annoyance in teachers in schools with classrooms characterised by different reverberation times"
Per Larsen spoke with Richard Ballinger and Lisbeth Rasmussen of COWI today following his paper regarding "How can large reverberant rooms be used for group conversation". Per made an interview with Richard after his lecture.
Continue reading "Interview with Richard Ballinger from Denmark" »
Tuesday morning, at Internoise 2010; Carsten Svensson is interviewing Patrick of Genesis from France. Genesis Acoustics works with sound quality and offers unique solutions to analyse sound perception. Genesis is a leading french company for audio simulators and 3D sound playback systems,
Listen to the interview that Carsten has with Patrick
Continue reading "Interview with Patrick Boussard from Genesis" »
Diogo Alarcão
We are meeting Diogo Alarcão in the exhibition area of the conference.
Diogo is the exhibition manager for Internoise 2010 and although he is extremely busy, he likes to take a minute to explain to Acoustic Bulletin who he is and how the conference is going. He is very pleased with the 1200 participants sofar...
Listen to the interview with Diogo >>
Sustainability does not only relate to recycling of materials and reduction of emissions, it also includes acoustics! The New Zealand Acoustical Society hosts a satellite conference in connection with the ICA 2010 conference in Sydney.
Continue reading "Sustainability also includes acoustics!" »
The Center for Hearing and Communication founded International Noise Awareness Day to promote awareness of the dangers of long-term exposure to noise.
"It is time to address the threat that noise poses to hearing, health, learning and behavior," says Amy Boyle, Director of Public Education at the Center for the Hard of Hearing. This year the Center is once again spearheading a special effort to inform the public of the necessity of creating a quiet home, school and recreational environment.
Continue reading "International Noise Awareness Day April 28, 2010" »
Noise in the built environment symposium (Thursday 29 April 2010 - Friday 30 April 2010) is organised jointly by the Association of Belgian Acoustical Association and Institute of Acoustics, and supported by the European Acoustics Association as an EAA Symposium.
Continue reading "Joint Belgium and UK Acoustics symposium at Ghent University" »
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.
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.
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?
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
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" »
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" »
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
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.
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" »
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.
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
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
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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
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" »
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.
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)
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.
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
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.
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." »
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?" »
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!
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!
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)
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
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.
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
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).
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
MOVIES
Infromation and availability will follow later
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
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
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
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"" »
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...
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)
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!
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!
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