At what stage should acoustic comfort be built into an office design?

CH3's answer is straightforward: at the start of planning, alongside the architecture and interior design. The company has been receiving requests for new projects in which the quality of the sound environment is a requirement, and experience shows that acoustics addressed early cost less and work better.

Why timing matters

When the acoustic design takes shape together with the layout, many problems can be avoided and the solutions optimized to suit how the spaces are arranged. Interventions made after the build is finished, by contrast, tend to be very expensive.

There is also a health reason. The WHO considers noise pollution a public health problem: about 10% of the world's population is exposed to noise levels that can cause hearing damage, annoyance, discomfort and cognitive impairment. In the office, this directly affects productivity.

The reference standard

The design must take into account the technical standard NBR 1015, which sets the acceptable noise levels for indoor spaces according to the type of use.

Sound insulation or acoustic treatment

Deciding early makes it possible to choose the right strategy, using interior geometry and sound-absorbing materials:

• Sound insulation: blocking outside sound, for example to ensure privacy in a meeting room.
• Acoustic treatment: more closely associated with offices that have enclosed rooms. The calculations take into account the type of walls, slabs, window and door frames, vertical acoustic barriers, ducts and the ventilation system, to meet the comfort level of each space and workstation.

In both cases, the goal is to ensure privacy without keeping teams from interacting. CH3 has already applied solutions of this kind on corporate projects, such as Trisoft's acoustic clouds on the APR Seguros build. For your company, the benefit of addressing acoustics from the start is having these choices built into the design rather than improvised later.