1. OFFICES LOOK GOOD, BUT SOUND BAD

Open Offices in the UAE are designed for collaboration and look great, however the sound of the telephone constantly ringing, general chit-chat from your colleagues, and noisy office machinery are all common disturbances affecting our ability to work.

With acoustics and soundproofing often being overlooked in offices with sub-par partitions and large open conference rooms, distractions from noise are a constant in workplaces across the UAE.

Understand how sound travels in your workplace.

2. SOUND TRAVELS THROUGH OPEN SPACES

When you hear disturbances or sounds from your co-workers coming from the surroundings rooms.

There are three ways this can occur:
• 1. Open air passages between rooms
• 2. Reflected by hard surfaces in walls, floors, and ceilings
• 3. Vibrations coming through solid surfaces with no absorption, e.g., concrete walls and marble floors.

Any interior design for offices is not completed without considering acoustics in the workplace.

3. SOUND REFLECTS ON HARD SURFACES

When a sound is created, sound waves spread out and reflect on the surfaces in a room. Typical hard materials used in offices that reflect almost 100% of the sound are:

The reflected sound waves bounce off the materials and reach our ear with a delay. When this delay is long, we perceive it as an echo or noise. Empty rooms may have more echo because of the absence of sound absorbing surfaces like soft furnishings, carpets and curtains.