Category: REGULATION AND STANDARDIZATION | Back »
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
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.
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
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.
The new Swedish standard SS 25268:2007 Acoustics – Sound classification of spaces in buildings is now available. The standard supports the planning- and evaluation process of the sound environment in offices, schools, day care centres, healthcare premises, hotels and restaurants.
Highlights from the new standard:
- Room types are now based on activity
- Shorter reverberation times in healthcare premises
- Reverberation time is to be measured in diffuse sound fields, which in practice means the standard requires specific amounts of absorption, according to ISO 354
- Four sound quality classes (sound class A-D), instead of three as in the previous standard
- Guidelines of how to evaluate the acoustics in a finished building
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
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" »
As previously announced, here, French standard NF S31-080 on acoustic quality of offices was published in January 2006.
Continue reading "Great interest for NF S31-080 in France" »
More and more, acoustical performance of buildings is described in standards and norms. These are useful documents for expressing requirements and expectations regarding the acoustics. Here is a short overview, gathering standards addressing single building types as well as more general standards (in order of publication). All of them are available in English (original or english version). Please help us to complete the list by posting a comment.
Continue reading "Short overview of acoustic building performance standards" »
Annex H is now added to the original version of the Finnish Standard SFS 5907, previously described in Ecophon Acoustic Bulletin and initially published 2004.
Annex H is informative and estimates the amount of Class A resp. Class C absorption material needed, as a percentage of the surface area of the space, with respect to various heights and reverberation times.
Continue reading "Room acoustics tool added to Finnish Standard SFS 5907" »
The European Directive on Construction Protection against noise applies to all buildings occupied by people.
A specific paragraph addresses Reverberant Noise and how to handle it. Intesting is the use of equivalent absorption area.
Continue reading "European Directive bans excessive reverberant noise" »
BB77 is meant to be guidance for school design edited by the British government. It addresses the inclusive aspects of school facilities, meaning their capacity to accommodate pupils with special needs.
The draft is a 293 page document, applying to all schools whether “special” or not.
Continue reading "Designing for Pupils with Special Educational Needs" »
German Standard DIN 18041 "Acoustical quality in small to medium-sized rooms", previously addressed here is now available in English.
"School acoustics after BB93 - practical problems and solutions" is a report compiled to assess the implementation of the British Building Bulletin 93 "Acoustic design of schools", also called BB93.
Continue reading "Going beyond the requirements of BB 93?" »
NF S31- 080, Acoustics - Offices and associated areas - Acoustic performance levels and criteria by type of area, published January 2006, is the first French standard on office acoustics. It is designed as a reference document for clients to express their requirements, as well as a guide-line for office designers.
Continue reading "New French standard on office acoustics" »
World Health Organization - Guidelines for Community Noise is a systematic review of scientific evidence regarding noise, annoyance, speech and hearing impairment. The document provides also relevant guideline values.
International Standard ISO/TR 3352:1974 "Acoustics - Assessment of noise with respect to its effect on the intelligibility of speech" provides methods for measurement and assessment of noise with respect to intelligibility.
Continue reading "Assessment of noise with respect to its effect on the intelligibility of speech" »
German Standard DIN 18041 "Acoustical quality in small to medium-sized rooms" includes a table called “Guideline values for the free ceiling and wall surface areas to be covered with sound absorbers as a multiple of the room basic area (…)”. The table Download file presents for different room types the amount of sound absorbers to be used depending on their sound absorption performance (expressed as αw).
I asked two questions to Bernd Kunzmann, Chairman of the DIN Technical Committee responsible for the writing of DIN 18041.
The answers confirm that reduction of sound pressure level is at least as important as reverberation time as a room acoustic descriptor.
Continue reading "Reverberation time vs. amount of absorption in DIN 18041" »
Call centres are acoustically challenging environments. Australian/New Zealand Standard AS/NZS 2107:2000 "Recommended design sound levels and reverberation times for building interiors" addresses call centres.
Norwegian standard NS 8175 presented earlier is now available in English.
Statskontoret Technical Standard TS 26:6 "Acoustical Noise Emission of Information Technology Equipment" specifies how to measure, declare and verify noise emission values of information technology equipment and also recommends acceptable upper limits for declared A-weighted sound power levels. Originally from Sweden it is widely used internationally when purchasing IT equipment.
The new ISO standard "ISO 18233 Acoustics – Application of new measurement methods in buildings and room acoustics" will be officially introduced late 2005 or early 2006.
Continue reading "ISO 18233: Use of new measurement methods" »
New acoustics guidelines for multidisciplinary sports facilities have been published in the Netherlands. The guidelines support principals in making the right demands in coming building projects, demands which guarantee the quality of the sporting, working and learning environment.
Read more
The standard defining STI, previously known as IEC 60268-16, has been provided since 2003 with an EN (European Norm) reference.
Norwegian Standard NS 8175 ”Acoustic conditions in Buildings – sound classification of various types of buildings”, was originally published in 1997 (TK97). The revised version of NS 8175 was published in April this year.
Continue reading "Pioneer Norwegian standard on acoustic classification revised" »
Known as ANSI S12.60-2002 American National Standard Acoustical Performance Criteria, Design Requirements, and Guidelines for Schools, this standard provides helpful guidance to design professionals, educational facilities planners, and the general public, as well.
Continue reading "American Standard on classroom acoustics now available online free of charge" »
The Finnish Standards Association published end of 2004 a new standard on acoustics in buildings. SFS 5907 (”Acoustic Classification of Buildings”) can be referred to when expressing acoustics requirements for most types of buildings.
Continue reading "New Finnish standard specifies sound conditions in buildings" »
The Finnish Standards Association published end of 2004 a new standard on acoustics in buildings. SFS 5907 (”Acoustic Classification of Buildings”) can be referred to when expressing acoustics requirements for most types of buildings.
The standard is also meant to be an education tool in acoustics for architects and clients.
Besides acousticians’ experience, the guide-lines and target values presented in SFS 5907 are based on new research findings from Finland and abroad.
As a general rule, it divides buildings and premises into four acoustic classes (A, B, C and D). Buildings in classes A and B are better than the ordinary in terms of their acoustics, class C corresponds to the minimum level, while class D is intended for old buildings only.
Continue reading "New Finnish standard specifies sound conditions in buildings" »
The new Building Regulation 93 (BB93) – Acoustics in School Design in UK includes stricter requirements on noise levels and reverberation time within classrooms. It also contains increased recognition for hearing impaired children and new requirements on sound insulation. Very interesting is the introduction of third party control bodies to ensure designs conform to BB93.
