The sounds of a coffee shop – is it a buzz? A hum? A whir? – have an inspiring effect on humans across the globe. Like bees to honey, people want to be a part of the creative energy that happens there.
The rise of coworking spaces and other intentional third spaces that aim to recreate that feeling in the workplace affirms this notion.
But our soundscapes are growing more complex. In many ways it’s becoming harder for us to remove unwanted noise from our life and surround ourselves with the sounds we need and want. Sound constantly surrounds us, but we’re not always even aware of its presence, let alone its negative impacts.
Think about your last trip to the coffee shop or your building’s work café. You’re sitting in the middle of that great creative vortex, but you head to the bathroom. The hand-dryer blasts the water away from your hands and the sounds whoosh in, too. The fire alarm goes off, so you head outside and stretch your legs. The sidewalk is under construction, so you scoot down the street trying to find a quiet space to make a phone call.
Air pollution has certainly earned its spot at the top of the list of global health threats, but the World Health Organization reports that noise pollution is second only to air pollution as the biggest global threat to public health.
Is that really true? Is it getting worse? The Archive of Internal Medicine reports, “There is an unrecognized epidemic of hearing loss in the United States. The percentage of Americans with hearing loss has nearly tripled from 7% of the population in 1971 to 9% in 1991 to 20% in 2008.” And medical journals consistently find and report the auditory and non-auditory effects noise can have on human health, including hypertension, insomnia or sleep disturbances, hearing loss, and the worsening of a plethora of other existing medical conditions.
The Noise Abatement Society, an organization in the U.K., and its associated Quiet Markproduct standard, are trying to help reverse the damage people are experiencing through sound.
In 2012, “Quiet Mark sprang from the response to public complaints received by the Noise Abatement Society’s 24/7 national noise help-line, concerning the volume of excessive noise made by household tools and appliances which invade the fabric of everyday life,” notes the Quiet Mark standard. “In our stressful lives, we are surrounded by a cacophony of sound that we have little power to stop. The louder the noise around us, the more energy we waste to overcome it, and it is growing worse day by day. As a solution to this, Quiet Mark and its universal symbol have embarked on a journey to transform the situation by commending a selection of the quietest technology in the world and in turn, create quieter homes, workplaces and outdoor environments.
“The response from the industry internationally has been overwhelmingly positive with over 70 leading global brands across the first 40 product categories, from dishwashers to garden tools, cars and airplanes, and now bringing onboard Electrolux, Dyson, Miele, Mitsubishi Electric, Logitech and Whirlpool, among many others. They have all achieved awards for their quieter products with the distinctive purple Quiet Mark logo.”
Two weeks ago, Quiet Mark made its official stateside debut, launching in the U.S. in collaboration with the renowned Good HousekeepingInstitute to replicate its successful U.K. campaign.
In an officeinsight interview, we spoke to Quiet Mark founder Poppy Szkilerabout the standard’s U.S. launch and the challenges it faces. Ms. Szkiler is a third generation member of her family’s campaign to heal our soundscapes.Her grandfather, John Connell, OBE (Order of the British Empire), founded the Noise Abatement Society in 1959, and hermother, Gloria Elliott, OBE, has been the chief executive of the Noise Abatement Society for over 20 years and is also a Quiet Mark co-founder.“
We’re raising the agenda that the sound design of something is just as important as its visual appeal,” said Ms. Szkiler. “We’re encouraging manufacturers to spend more on sound R&D in the design process. And that’s a big mission. Quiet Mark is a consumer champion – we’re very consumer-driven. But there’s a lot of triangulation and collaboration happening between us, consumers, government and commercial entities.”
“I just walked into a Bed, Bath & Beyond a few days ago, and looking through all of the products there, it’s very hard to tell what type of sound each product will produce. Most of them claim to be ‘quiet’ and ‘noise-reducing’, but they haven’t been verified.”
Quiet Mark’s next steps lie in developing relationships with retail buyers to begin coaching them to heed increasing consumer demands for more sophisticated sound control. It reported from a retail market study that 62% of consumers are now actively seeking solutions to combat negative sound overload. In reaction to this, it wants to promote a new era of sound-focused design.
Hopefully we can all start to soundscape our environments more intentionally,” said Ms. Szkiler. “Our goal is to build a suite of options that make your purchasing and specifying decisions quicker and easier to make. We want it to be easy for you to make a good sound design choice, in addition to a great functional and visual design choice.”
Healthier, quieter, less stressful lives include a non-intrusive, healthy soundscape.“
Unfortunately, we too easily accept that noise is the price we pay for evolution, and don’t question the intrusive and irritating sounds of the machines that are embedded in our daily lives,” notes the Quiet Mark standard. “Quiet Mark and its universal symbol have embarked on a journey to transform the situation by commending a selection of the quietest technology in the world and in turn, create quieter homes, workplaces and outdoor environments.”
Sound and sound measurement is a highly technical process that is difficult to get right. Interior designers and architects have first-hand knowledge of the inconsistencies, misinformation and false claims that many manufacturers make about their products’ acoustic qualities, which go largely unchecked. In response, Quiet Mark has developed an exhaustive proprietary testing program carried out in facilities in the U.K. and U.S., manned by expert acousticians specializing in over 50 product categories.
he acoustics of these labs are carefully designed to represent real-life scenarios, in which the products being tested would typically be used,” notes the Quiet Mark documentation. “State of the art, calibrated instrumentation is then used to record the product sounds as they would be received by the human ear.“
Quiet Mark also takes into consideration the core performance of the product and looks to work with products across a range of price points to cater for most budgets. Using this method, the company has awarded over 500 different products from quiet washing machines, vacuum cleaners, no-noise musical instruments, toilet flushes, hand-dryers to forklift trucks, acoustic glazing, insulation and doors.”
In the U.S., Interfaceis one of the first companies to be awarded the Quiet Mark distinction. The carpet tile company worked with Quiet Mark for four years to develop Sound Choice backing, an extra level of acoustical layering that absorbs additional sound from the environment it’s installed in. The resulting Level Set Collectionof luxury vinyl tile flooring delivers superior sound reduction baked into the product without the need for designers to specify expensive add-on features.
Noise pollution will not disappear on its own. We hope many more architectural and interior material companies will work toward developing products that achieve the Quiet Mark standard.
About The Noise Abatement Society:
The remit of this national charity is to abate excessive and unnecessary noise to protect the public and improve the aural environment. Working with Government and Industry for more than fifty years the Noise Abatement Society has achieved a reputation for collaborative partnerships to find practical solutions to noise problems, underscored by programs to raise awareness and educate about measured, considered and responsible use of sound.
*Quoted medical journal: Dr. Mathias Basner, MD, Correspondence information about the author Dr. Mathias Basner, Wolfgang Babisch, PhD, Prof. Adrian Davis, PhD, Mark Brink, PhD, Charlotte Clark, PhD, Sabine Janssen, PhD, Prof Stephen Stansfeld, PhD