Measures against acoustic interference

Whereas visual interferences can be fully eliminated by simple room arrangements, acoustic interferences require complex solutions. It is very important to prevent the direct sound transfer as much as possible. This can be achieved through sound absorbing room segmentation systems for instance, which are placed between the sound source and the receiver (ear, telephone). Best results can be realized, when persons do work in well shielded, so called “acoustic shadow areas”.

The acoustic evaluation level in a room has to be reduced so far, that the occupational safety boundary values are not exceeded. Regarding rooms in which mainly intellectual activity is performed, a top boundary value of maximum 55 dB does apply. The guideline VDI 2569 recommends towards the background sound level a spectrum from 35 to 45 dB. Therefore it is useful to convert as many sound reflecting surfaces as possible into sound absorbing surfaces and also to use free surfaces of furniture and room segmentation systems for sound absorption.

Room segmentation systems should therefore have a high sound absorbing quality. With them, sound sources can be sealed off flexibly and direct and indirect sound transfer can be interrupted. It’s worth the effort: In rooms without visual and acoustic interference, physical and emotional stress is avoided. Concentration and performance is increased, error rates are minimized and the work quality will be raised.   

In the following example all interference factors are neutralized as far as possible. Noise creating equipment has been acoustically isolated as well as over-frequented lines of communication:

Further resources to improve the acoustics of a room can be found in the buero-forum paper nr. 8: “Room Acoustics”.