On july 2nd 2013, a full day to discuss office acoustics will be held in Paris. The event is organized by the Centre d’Information et de Documentation sur le Bruit (CIDB) and the Vie Quotidienne et Audition (VQA ). The forum aims to shed light on acoustic issues in offices and is a great opportunity […]
Offices
How far do you speak in the office?
Should we just accept that it takes 20 metres for the sound level of someone’s voice to drop to a comfortable non-distracting level, or should we reduce this to 10 metres so that workgroup-to-workgroup distractions are minimized? In the Nordic Innovation report “Acoustic design of open-plan offices” , it was found that in a Swedish […]
Office workers react to acoustics in new survey
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 […]
Workplace distractions in open plan – an epidemic?
Helena Jahncke from sweden concludes in her recently finished thesis “Cognitive Performance and Restoration in Open-Plan Office Noise” that open plan office noise lowers performance and increases fatigue. – We have seen that performance deteriorates 2-10 percent if it is possible to understand what colleagues in the background say than if the number is not […]
Study on well-being, productivity and leadership in open offices
(foto: Martin Palven) Lately there has been great focus on a yet not published research made by Aram Seddigh, scientist in offices from Stress Research Institute Stockholm University, with over 3000 persons interviewed about wellbeing, productivity and leadership. 45 % are not satisfied sitting i open office! The research is divided into 3 parts. The […]
Working in open spaces can make you sick
A study has published in the Asia-Pacific Journal of Health Management has concluded that the switch to open-plan has led to lower productivity and higher worker stress. “The high level of noise causes employees to lose concentration, leading to low productivity, there are privacy issues because everyone can see what you are doing on the […]
Acoustic awareness raised at EFMC2012
The Ecophon office network joined up in an effort to raise acoustic awareness among the facility management community, at EFMC 2012, trying to emphasise the importance of thinking about acoustics at an early stage, and the influence of acoustics to people’s satisfaction, performance and well-being. Facility managers, workplace designers, and others within the >700 attendants […]
Open plan offices at Euronoise 2012
Open plan office acoustics were the subject of the afternoon on June 12th, at the Euronoise 2012 in Prague. The session was chaired by Valtteri Hongisto, from the finnish institute of occupational health, and dealt with the acoustic design of open plan offices and included presentations from Jukka Keränen, Claus Lynge Christensen, C.B Pop and […]
New open plan office ISO-standard published
The new standard ISO 3382-3: Acoustics — Measurement of room acoustic parameters — Part 3: Open plan offices, has now officially been published and can be downloaded as pdf using this link
New open plan office standard reaches publication stage
The new standard ISO 3382-3: Acoustics — Measurement of room acoustic parameters — Part 3: Open plan offices, has now officially been approved and moved on to publication stage 60.00 (2011-12-19), which categorises it as an international standard under publication. The main points of this standard as experienced by Acoustic Bulletin, is the fact that […]
