Acoustic Dampening Façade
Photo credit Emeka Nwosu // Felix Mallinder
Author Emeka Nwosu // Felix Mallinder
Challenge
Acoustic levels and quality of sound are both massive factors in the productivity and ability to focus, in any work environment. Although reducing these sounds can be complex as the purpose of these spaces can be ever-changing and so two, the types of sounds produced, from group work to meetings, to private work, different situations carry different acoustical needs and open-plan spaces fail to meet the requirements of these all, simultaneously.
Context
It is important in office spaces to allow area of collaboration and connectivity but in a world of hybrid meetings and continual online presences there is inevitably times where, reduced sound levels and improved acoustic qualities are needed to allow users to share these spaces. We identify our context within office locations where quiet areas are hard to come by or generate from lack of space and aim to build a deployable mechanism that will allow users to adapt this existing space for the same purpose without need to relocate.
Functions
For a successful solution to our problem our design functions must be able to reduce and soften the perceived volume of office space acoustics to the user. We look to adapt a morphology which will be able to achieve these goals whilst also being deployable, meaning the user can set the system for different situations. This is an important function as our context looks to multi use scenarios with various noise levels and requirements.
