ICON - January/February 2017

REDEFINE YOUR ENVIRONMENT
CONTROLLING REVERBERATED NOISE CAN CREATE AN
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distracting as the most insidious ringtone. “As building systems are getting quieter, we have to be more cognizant of how to solve the acoustic challenges that quieter building systems create,” says Dave Madson, an interior designer with CBT. One solution is sound masking systems that raise the ambient noise level of an otherwise quiet space. These systems emit sound (commonly compared to whooshing air) engineered to block the frequencies of human speech so that office neighbors’ conversations don’t distract from an individual’s tasks. Cambridge Sound Management’s systems consist of networks of 3-inch speakers, each weighing about as much as a baseball, which are installed in the ceiling and project sound directly into the workplace. They’re controlled via a wall panel or a web-based interface. Sound masking can be particularly handy when a design calls for unfinished and exposed ceilings, since a few small speakers won’t ruin the sense of raw authenticity and material honesty.

SOUND BARRIER BREAKTHROUGH?

This growing menu of options indicates that the acoustical design of spaces won’t just be a niche concern for designers in the future. Storyk says that acoustics are on the verge of being integrated into design best practices. “Acoustics is the ‘green’ of 10 years ago,” explains Daniel Monier, head of national sales for BuzziSpace. He says designers are thinking through how to incorporate better acoustics into all kinds of spaces, and he’s working with them earlier and earlier in the design process.

The reasons for this, according to Storyk, are a function of demographics and the evolving regulatory climate. As baby boomers get older and harder of hearing, their need for perfectly attuned environments increases. And since 2002, new acoustic standards for classroom acoustics (like ANSI S12.60,

Acoustical Performance Criteria, Design Requirements and Guidelines for Schools)

have been developed and adopted by several states.

Further public acceptance of the importance of acoustics will hinge on the amount of transparency between manufacturers’ claims and their products’ real level of performance, but there are no broad-based domestic certification bodies for acoustics that function like the non-profit Green Business Certification Inc. (GBCI) does for sustainable buildings. In 2013, an acoustics certification organization, Acoustic Facts, sprung up in Sweden. Acoustic Facts reviews measurements from independent laboratories, and is funded by the product manufacturers whose products they test. Storyk trusts small handfuls of independent labs (SoundKinetics, Johns Manville’s Technical Center, Riverbank Acoustical Laboratories, IBM’s Acoustical Services) for product specifications.

If the current wave of acoustical privacy measures is driven by the need to attenuate open plan offices to the desires of the people that work there, the next wave might come from completely decoupling workers from their offices. A Gallup poll from 2015 found that more than one-third of U.S. workers telecommute, and an entire industry of co-working spaces like We Work have cropped up, catering to entrepreneurial millennials who want to design software next to graphic designers and start-up public relations firms. There are fewer and fewer reasons to come to a centralized office, but just as many reasons to want acoustic privacy.

As such, Goodell says she’s on the lookout for “targeted acoustical products” that create a hyper-localized acoustic barrier around a person, wherever they might go. Madson notes this might include “active sound masking” devices that listen with microphones to the noises going on around individuals, that then emit opposing sound waves to specifically cancel out noise. Eventually, acoustic privacy might be as mobile as the workforce that requires it.