A 90-second daily show highlighting the songs of British birds has been played early on BBC Radio 4 this week. But birdsong isn't just beautiful to listen to, it is increasingly being used in innovative ways due to the positive response people have in certain activity conditions like; during homework, a post meal slump, where people have a fear of needles, around transport and also for general business.

This recently published BIAMP Sytems Whitepaper calls for acoustics to be given much greater consideration by building designers and engineers, policymakers, public service administrators, business leaders and property investors. Supported by The Sound Agency Julian Treasure writes how it pushes for a truly integrated approach to sound.

The Lund University Sound Environment Center hosted the "Noise and disease" symposium in Lund, which featured presentations background and present status of noise research (see more info here). Sara Holmqvist, concept developer and Acoustic Bulletin editor took the opportunity to talk to key note speaker Dr Wolfgang Babisch about his research from the early stages in his career, where we are today and where we are heading in noise research in the future. To see the interview please click on the image or here

In the Nordic Innovation report “Acoustic design of open-plan offices” , it was found that in a Swedish call centre, when reducing the distance for the sound to drop from 60 to 40 dBA from more than 16m before acoustic refurbishment to less than 4m thereafter, the proportion of people rating their acoustical environment as “bad” was reduced from 40% to 10%, and the proportion rating it as “good” increased from 20% to 60%.

An interesting article featured on Swedish radio website recently saying poor acoustics in school premises can lead to poor results. It highlights that students with non native language backgrounds do worse in school which may be partly due to poor acoustics in classrooms. Research shows that it is more difficult to perceive all sounds in a language that don’t belong to one’s mother tongue.

The latest newsletter is now available online. Click here or use the newsletter archive on the right menu to read it. This newsletter was sent out on Thursday March 26th to all our subscribers. Subcribe today to stay fully updated.

A survey of 2000 workers in the UK has revealed that people find difficulties concentrating and are not satisfied with their privacy. Almost 80% of those surveyed work in open plan or shared offices. When asked what they thought about the current acoustic environment in their office, more than half of respondents (54%) said working in an open-plan workspace sometimes makes it difficult for them to concentrate and do their job.

Acoustic Bulletin would like to highlight a symposium on noise and disease arranged by the Sound Environment Center at Lund University on 12 april 2013.

The conception that critically ill patients are too ill to reflect on their sound environment in the intensive care unit needs to be revised. This was one of the conclusions Swedish researchers made in a qualitative study on patient experiences of their stay in intensive care.

Last week saw an increased focus on classroom acoustics at the Education Show event ath the NEC, Birmingham. The Big Noise Survey was launched and Shane Cryer and Simon Smith presented about the importance of good classroom acoustics to teachers and head teachers during the seminars programme.
Shane Cryer, local Concept Developer for education environments caught up with some key acoustic influencers and enthusiasts during the show.

The Big Noise Survey is a project which aims to raise the profile of the need for good acoustics in schools, and highlight the effect on teachers’ health. The survey will launch next week at The Education Show at the NEC, UK.

The german facility management yearly event took place in Frankfurt 26-28 of Frebruary, and for the first time ever room acoustics was on the agenda. Rainer Machner, concept developer office DE, was one of the speakers in this 2h session, focusing on explaining the ISO3382-3 standard for open plan offices.