The new HTM gives Design Criteria for Room Acoustics in UK Healthcare Premises The document’s Executive Summary states “Noise can increase heart rate, blood pressure, respiration rate and even blood cholesterol levels. Good acoustic conditions improve patient privacy and dignity and promote essential sleep patterns. Such conditions are key to healing” Recently published, it requires […]
Acoustic Standards
THOUGHTS ABOUT OPEN PLAN SPACES STANDARD 3382-3
This is an interview with PhD Valtteri Hongisto, Senior Research Scientist at the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health and Adjunct Professor at Helsinki University of Technology. He has performed a lot of acoustic research and has been involved in the creation of standards and guidelines, for example the Acoustic Classification of Spaces in buildings SFS […]
Simplified room acoustic measurement
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 […]
Why do we need standards?
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 […]
NEW DUTCH STANDARD SOON IN ENGLISH
Since August this year a new standard was published in the Netherlands dealing with noise at the workplace. An international interest in this standard will soon result in an english version to be made available. Planning for that is early next year. The full title is NPR 3438 Noise at the workplace – Determination of […]
A new Dutch standard has seen daylight! Presented at ICA 2007 in Madrid!
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 […]
Short overview of acoustic building performance standards
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 […]
Room acoustics tool added to Finnish Standard SFS 5907
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 […]
Breakthroughs in standardisation in Nordic countries
Nordic requirements and recommendations for acoustic conditions in buildings is a review document (in Swedish) It provides a snapshot of the situation in the begenning of the 2000’es in the Nordic countries and reflects the large efforts put since then to create and improve standards for building performance. A large part of the documents quoted […]
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 […]