Designing a building includes lots of factors than just managing and planning the space into rooms. Today, I would like to highlight an important factor of designing i.e. Acoustics! which is study of sound in built environment.
A space must have certain elements which makes it user friendly. Like just imagine yourself working in a office where sounds of keyboards, people chatting and telephone ringing all the time and by the end of the day you'll be more exhausted than you should be.
Or in other case, For students sitting in an auditorium classroom and all you try to hear is your teacher's voice which can't reach you by the last bench as the teacher won't have a mic always.
Maybe consider yourself walking in a hotel's lobby and all you hear is echoing of little whispers of people around.
And there are multiple scenario where having a bad hearing experience makes you irritated and even exhausted. So, considering acoustics in the interiors is equally important as the aesthetics and functionality.
There are certainly many technical aspects such as reflection, reverberation, wave length, absorption etc which one needs to consider while planning but since this blog is not meant for just technicians but for layman people as well so let's learn few things which one could easily remember and can even use it in their already built environment.
Living Wall
Do not get confused by the name, By living wall, I mean to specify "Green wall"
Not just providing good air quality, aesthetics and mental wellness but green walls are good at noise reduction.
What happens is that plants tend to absorb noise pollution by 40% as studies reported and this is really beneficial for any commercial place and even personal as well. This can be part of interior as well as exterior. Not just easily maintained but can be incorporated on existing old wall or new walls in a new building environment.
So, This was the first most economical way to reduce noise pollution inside the building.
Privacy booths & Carpets
Carpets! Yes you read it right, A basic carpet is so useful in noise reduction. Let's know how technically is this possible-
Sound travels through vibrations of air molecule. In a built environment we just do not have verbal noise but also surface noise which gets reflected through hard surfaces and reverberation takes place which converts sound into noise as it becomes intolerable back ground noises.
What carpet does is it does not let the most of the sound vibrations gets reflected through it's surface rather it absorbs it. Obviously not all of it but some percentage of it which automatically reduces the noise.
Consider having a carpet at home or work place, many luxurious hotel have it as well.
The most important thing to consider is the maintenance of the carpet, It should get regularly cleaned as it's really important to have a clean carpet.
Privacy booths
It is best for commercial places as it does not requires much of work to be done to install it. Since it's a furniture and one can change it's position easily. Moreover if you shift the office or your place entirely then the furniture could go along with you but installed acoustic panels cannot. So they owe an advantage over that aspect.
Acoustic Panels and Clouds
The basic and most efficient of all ways is the installation of Baffled or perforated panels. Bet it ceilings or walls, these panels provide best of quality in noise reduction and has been proven the top most yet not economical way to reduce noise pollution.
Let's talk about Baffle panels first-
These are hanging panels from the ceiling, they are attached by metal frame and not just perform a better sound absorption but also provide aesthetic elements to the space. They are best for a larger span of space since they perform best and absorbs most of the noise. They are easily installed and do not cost much maintenance.
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Okay they can be of different colours, and can be installed at different heights as well.
let's know something about Perforated panels as well as they could be installed on the wall with acoustic material inside which makes it look aesthetic and at the same time it controls noise pollution as well.
The main issue is of maintaining, before installing such expensive and great materials one should evaluate the cost of it's maintenance as well since if it's not maintained it is not useful.
The last but not the least, Talking about acoustic clouds.
These clouds perform similar function to baffle panels but with the difference that they are horizontally placed or rather suspended from the ceiling and they can be placed at low ceiling heights as it is really useful since not every place owes a huge ceiling height. They do not interfere with the lightings and sprinklers on the ceiling and they provide rather aesthetic appearance to the space.
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They come in different shapes, colour and sizes.
Do you have a good acoustic control in your place of work, home etc? If not, will you consider one of the above mention solution to improvise and control the noise pollution in your building?
