Office and Commercial

Sectors

Our role in commercial office buildings is all encompassing.

We assist in the preparation of documents to support the planning application, specify the sound reduction of the external building fabric, assist with the internal acoustics and carefully design the complicated noise and vibration control of the building services.

We also provide monitoring during construction and commission the building at handover.

A lot of times we have been send to witness the acoustic testing of items like the cladding (including flanking) and vibration isolation bearings. However for the majority of our visits we witness the acoustic testing of building services items including fan coil units, chiller units, air dry coolers, generators and air handling units.

There is a trend nowadays for naturally ventilated office buildings which is of course not ideal for the urban locations of these buildings. Our expertise in the design, manufacture and installation of noise attenuation products for the HVAC industry has been extremely useful in the innovative design of passive attenuated systems to ensure naturally ventilated office buildings comply with suitable internal ambient noise levels.

Modern offices are characterised by open spaces, where workers can easily interact, collaborate and communicate. However, little thought goes into how these new work spaces may affect the immediate sound environment. A study by Banbury and Berry showed that open plan offices can reduce productivity by up to 66%. Just think what this is doing to the turnover of the business.

Good office acoustics are extremely important in providing an environment that allows for shared ideas and effective communication whilst also enabling workers to perform their roles in an environment that isn’t too disruptive or harmful to productivity.

The introduction and strategic location of sound absorbing surfaces together with appropriate acoustic barriers will contribute towards providing an environment that creates maximum comfort for staff. No matter what type of office space you are in, be it open plan, private office, meeting room or AV/VC suite, the pre-requisites for acoustic comfort, speech intelligibility and speech privacy are the same.