Guest post by Marco Caniato University of Applied Science HFT of Stuttgart, based on his recent presentation at Forum Acousticum / Euronoise 2025 conference in Málaga. Background Reverberation time (RT) is a fundamental parameter in room acoustics, directly affecting speech intelligibility, comfort, and the overall acoustic quality of a space. Yet, despite decades of research […]
Offices
Acoustics in Green Buildings
Acoustics in green buildings, by Hassan Al-Ramadani Over the last twenty years, there has been a remarkable surge in the construction industry’s adoption of green buildings. This has been due to public awareness of adopting sustainability and sustainable practices. Additionally, several studies have proposed that occupants of green buildings have a higher level of productivity […]
Irrelevant speech makes perceived workload higher
Irrelevant speech, or background conversations, has been shown to impair cognitive performance and cause physiological stress. Recently published research demonstrated that working during task-irrelevant speech not only increases stress, as measured by heart rate variability, and reduces accuracy but also increases annoyance and perceived workload. Method Thirty participants performed two cognitive tasks (n-back and serial […]
Three strategies towards greater sustainability – presentation at DAGA conference
The 50th Annual Congress of the German Acoustical Society (DAGA) was held in Hannover this year. Celebrating decades of innovation and scientific advancement, DAGA 2024 featured presentations dedicated to sustainable practices in acoustic research and technology. This article provides a summary of the presentation by Achim Klein from Ecophon Saint-Gobain on the efficiency, consistency, and […]
Tackling acoustic challenges in open-plan offices
Increase in open-plan solutions Open-plan offices have gradually become a preferred model for companies to use, mainly to encourage spontaneous interactions between coworkers, but also because of the aesthetics around a big open room. Further, there is an economic benefit of having as many workstations as possible in fewer square meters. However, these benefits often […]
Baltic-Nordic Acoustic Meeting 2024
On May 22-24, some 175 delegates from 18 countries gathered together in the beautiful venue at the Finnish-Swedish Cultural Center Hanaholmen. Located at the scenic seafront between Helsinki and Espoo in Finland. Three days of conference targeted even more than before to the people practising acoustics every day. This meant that one of the Baltic-Nordic […]
Renewed Room Acoustic standard, SS 25268:2023
Introduced in April 2023 the renewed room acoustic standard SS 25268:2023 [1] for the Swedish market is now less than a year old. The background and purpose of the standard is, among other things, to supplement the Swedish National Board of Housing, Building and Planning’s building regulations and other governing documents and to facilitate planning […]
The relationship between acoustic privacy, personality type and burnout
The relationship between personality traits and burnout has been researched extensively. The current study conducted among UK office workers uniquely aimed to investigate the relationship between acoustic privacy, personality type and burnout. Although the link between acoustic privacy and burnout is less clear, the evidence shows that acoustic privacy affects stress levels, distractions, the ability […]
Dissatisfaction with noise strongly related to the perceived fit of office
Many research studies investigate satisfaction with indoor environmental quality in offices. In their study, Jenni Raduni and Valtteri Hongisto from Turku University examined the influence of office types and satisfaction with indoor environmental quality factors on different activities’ perceived fit. The study was based on a large global dataset consisting of more than 82,000 respondents […]
People’s preferences of sound
Knowledge of the relation between people’s preferences and room acoustic parameters is critical for choosing the correct acoustic treatment and for creating good sound environments for people. In the frame of a PhD, people’s preferences regarding different acoustic environments were investigated. Their judgments were related to various room acoustics parameters. The results from the study […]
