The open office has become a mainstay in workplace design. And while a backlash against it has also occurred, real estate constraints and space projections for the future are ensuring that many people in offices around the world will be working in open offices for years to come.
All contract furnishings companies know this. “Acoustic” is a buzzword we see attached to many products on the market today – and the status of the acoustical solutions market could currently best be described as – a free-for-all.
But wait. Some of these companies really know what they’re talking about, right? Some of them have been studying and perfecting acoustical solutions for years, and they got into the game before acoustics became trendy.
Talk to players who have been in the acoustics game since the beginning, and their frustration with companies mis-reporting their products’ acoustics abilities is clear.
Right now the market is muddled with what ICF Group Vice President and General Manager, Wick Wolfe refers to as “stuff” – interiors products that have minimal heightened acoustic properties but claim otherwise.
“There are a lot of new players, new companies jumping into the acoustics market, that don’t have the knowledge behind the acoustic properties of their products,” says Mr. Wolfe. “It’s a highly technical process – to meet the criteria for these acoustic solutions. Most everything around us except hard surfaces has some sort of acoustic property to it, whether it’s furniture, fabric, carpet, or anything else. But these things are not in the acoustic products market. It’s all stuff in the market that has be repurposed and rebranded as an acoustic product.
“We [ICF Group and Unika Vaev, nestled under ICF Group] see acoustics as the biggest hole in the industry that designers truly don’t know what to do with. Designers are expected to know a lot about a lot of things. They don’t have the time or resources to become experts in acoustics – that’s not something they should be spending their time on – developing the technical background to really solve the issues.”
Right now, regulation in verifying products’ acoustic abilities is limited-to-nonexistent, and inflated acoustical ratings are common.
“Designers get certain specific bullet points about every single product in every single market,” says Mr. Wolfe. “A lot of those bullet points and numbers don’t mean much, or are so far beyond what is necessary for the job that the market gets convoluted.”
For example, a fabric that has thousands of double rubs, that number is far beyond what is necessary for a fabric to perform extremely well in whatever environment it’s being considered for. But the fact that it says “X-thousand” double rubs gives designers the idea that the product is somehow superior to something else that would actually perform just as well with fewer double rubs. 100,000 double rubs sounds so much better than 50,000 double rubs – and designers take the bait.
“There’s a lot of smoke and mirrors around claims that say, ‘this product gives you…’” notes Mr. Wolfe. “If you see a .3 NRC rating on a standard wallcovering fabric – it’s false. If you ask the questions and drill down and start to look at those claims on a lot of companies’ websites, there are dead ends with no information to support those claims.”
BuzziSpace is fighting misinformation in the market with education opportunities. Daniel Verlooven, BuzziSpace’s Global Acoustic Ambassador, is passionate about teaching people the basics of acoustics. The company presents CEUs on the topic at industry events and through other outreach efforts.
“We’re prioritizing our knowledge in acoustics,” says Mr. Verlooven. “It’s the foundation of our company, so it’s very natural for us to do so.
“There’s a lot of frauding in reporting. Many designers don’t have any knowledge of acoustical ratings, of what an NRC rating is, for example. Anything with an NRC rating higher than 1 is just not possible, but a lot of companies are reporting those ratings in their products. It’s something we’ve been fighting against, especially in the past two years, because it really degrades our business.
“The three things people need to be happy and healthy in a workspace are air, light and sound,” continues Mr. Verlooven. “When you’re doing HVAC [air], you go to a specialist; when you’re doing lighting, you also often go to a specialist. But when it comes to acoustics, many people aren’t aware that it’s truly a specialized field of study. We still need to fight for the A&D community to recognize acoustic issues and work with a specialist when needed.”
“It’s easy for dealers to sell a chair or a table or desk – that’s a no-brainer. But with A/C, lighting and acoustics, the added value is more difficult to prove. We try really hard to teach our people to approach the market not as a sales person but more as a consultant.”
BuzziSpace makes available its RT60 digital app that enables app users to measure the reverberation time in a space and simulate the impact different BuzziSpace products would have on the room’s acoustics.
“As sound travels, it keeps bouncing up the walls, decreasing in intensity, until it eventually drops silent,” reads the app. “The time required for a sound to drop 60dB is what we call RT60. An extended Reverberation Time results in a noisy room and can cause headaches, stress and loss of focus. We want to avoid this. Using our RT60 in your room allows you to simulate the positive acoustic impact of our products in your space.”
Textile and materials manufacturer Designtex, a company with limited history in acoustical solutions, developed its first collection of three acoustical sheers around the idea of accounting for the full acoustics picture. Designtex president Susan Lyons notes the new collection is one their design team approached with a heightened sense of mindfulness, of doing something right – something that would not fall into the “stuff” category.
“The sheers are the first acoustical project we’ve assigned ourselves, and we approached it with a very clear intention,” said Ms. Lyons. “Most materials alone cannot solve acoustic issues. There’s two pieces to this – materials and installation. The materials need to be applied to a space properly. If a material is thick and fluffy, it can take on an acoustical moniker. And I feel that’s misleading. You need to consider the opacity and porosity of the material itself, but also the pocketed air behind it. Was the material applied with an appropriate pocket of air behind it to trap the sound?”
Designtex’s acoustical sheers use a yarn redesigned from a traditional yarn, which is typically circular.
“We redesigned the yarn to create little inlets and peninsulas that work to break up the sound waves. The sheer needs to be hung three to four inches away from another surface so that air can trap the sound.”
The design team specifically wanted to break away from the stereotypically heavy drapes that designers feel they need to use for spaces that need help acoustically.
“We wanted to keep the gossamer quality, to keep it feeling open.”
Creating acoustic solutions with multiple purposes is becoming a standard in the industry.
“There’s a lot of great work starting to happen in integrating acoustics into furniture, but also outside that, as acoustical solutions in the space,” says Reto Eberle, founder and CEO of the Los Angeles-based custom furniture company dTank. “It’s a combination of the two.”
dTank recently launched a new product called Acoustical Art, which prints art on an acoustically transparent fabric. In addition to hundreds of art options, the system uses an aluminum frame that can be arranged in a variety of configurations. The acoustical displays can be hung against the wall, freestanding, or suspended from the ceiling horizontally or vertically.
While companies chasing the acoustics trend are busy playing catch-up, industry leaders are also looking at how they can use their expertise to offer products with heightened value and new design choices.
Companies are focusing their product development on solutions that enable designers to customize – something they’re being asked for more and more.
“Designers always want more than what you’re offering,” said Mr. Wolfe. “So if you can do that, that’s where it’s at. It’s really important that designers and architects ask those hard questions.”
Unika Vaev’s Acoustic Grafx product speaks to the customization designers are seeking. A 100% polyester printed fabric, it serves as a vertical screen canvas with unlimited large-scale visual possibilities.
“It’s a polyester fabric skin that’s digitally printed, and designers can change the signage out frequently at a very reasonable price, said Mr. Wolfe.”
“Following the project all the way from inception to installation, as a manufacturer, is invaluable. Our part is far more than hiring a dealer to put chairs and desks in and installing them. It’s highly technical, it’s design driven and it’s collaborative. We can work with architects and designers on a comprehensive level, and can help zero in on solving very specific issues, too. If you don’t bring the back end to the party, then you’re just another company offering more ‘stuff.’ We [Unika Vaev] built that technical back-end into our company in the way we design and sell and install our products.”
Since its beginning, BuzziSpace has structured its products to account for positive sound experiences – but always in light of the need for tactility and the senses and play. How something looks and feels from all sides; a complete experience. A good example of this is BuzziPleat, a series of acoustical solutions with an “architectural edge” designed by 13&9. The collection of wall and hanging pendants use fashion design techniques like smocking and hand pleating. Its form is full of lightweight movement, sculpture and beauty, and it actually delivers on its acoustic abilities.
Moving beyond offering great acoustical products like many in BuzziSpace’s portfolio involves expanding their parameters of innovation.
“At this point, a lot of companies are now working with the same core materials,” said Mr. Verlooven. “After 10 years, it’s time for BuzziSpace to differentiate ourselves again.”
To do so, BuzziSpace is investing its resources in biomimicry and parametric design, both things the company considers at the forefront of a “new generation of acoustics.”
“Parametric design is a process based on algorithmic thinking that enables the expression of parameters and rules that, together, define, encode and clarify the relationship between design intent and design response.” (Parametric Design for Architecture, Jabi, Wassim (2013), London: Laurence King)
BuzziSpace plans to unveil its new introductions in parametric design in 2018.
Even with a convoluted, chaotic market and less than ideal transparency and regulation, the explosion of the acoustics scene has fostered a lot of great new innovation. Acoustics is in a growing pains phase, and that requires designers and architects to look at their options through a clarified lens.