Ask the Expert: How Can Acoustic Zoning Foster Community?

The sonic success of activity-based and open-plan workplace layouts, multi-purpose community areas, innovative education spaces, and our own multi-purpose residences relies on a careful process of acoustic zoning. Design adjacencies and details simultaneously support a full spectrum of sound—from quiet, meditative library areas to collaborative hubs buzzing with brainstorming. It’s essential to address a diverse range of acoustic needs for a successful working, learning, or living environment. Sound-absorbing materials, air gap technologies, best practice wall construction, and laminated/insulated glass enclosure solutions are just some examples of how design can reduce noise to protect people from distraction and mental stress.

As architects we enhance the efficiency of all activities that take place within a space through a variety of design solutions. Workplaces and residential homes share a common need for a balance of communal and private areas where sound transmission is carefully considered to instill a sense of safety and comfort while enabling connectivity and proximity. However, such acoustic mapping solutions are only fully effective when combined with educating people about how to use the spaces. Empowering people to own their experiences within a given environment can enable seamless transition between sound and silence, creating control of productivity and happiness.

Details of sound in interior architecture have the power to influence our mental well-being, both at work and at home. Considering the average American spends more than 90% of their life indoors, according to the EPA, designing spaces for sound has never been more critical.