HN Explorer

Ask HN: How are the acoustics in your open office?

6 points by robmiller ↗ HN
I am an acoustical consultant who works with architects to design some of your tech offices, among other spaces. The trend for some time has been to throw out the acoustical ceiling tile and embrace the industrial look. Now that its been a few years down, how is it working for you?

What are the sounds around you? People on phones, collaborating between work areas, or generally working alone with earbuds in? Are you aware of other people's conversations? How far away? Is it distracting?

Do you have partitions between your work areas? Taller than your seated height or just desk height?

Do you have HVAC suspended in your space? Would you call it noisy enough to drown out distant conversations or too noisy in your specific workspace?

I'll use your responses to flavor my conversations with architects in the future.

13 comments

[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 40.8 ms ] thread
rrrx3
Interesting to me that no one has responded.

My personal experience - the acoustics of open offices are generally awful. The past two days in a row, for example, have started with me actually saying out loud "what the hell is that sound?!" to my neighbor after hearing some weird-ass HVAC squealing/squeaking/screeching sounds.

No partitions, lots of collaboration, no noise cancelling.

HVAC noise is a constant, but not in any helpful way.

I can hear people 40 yards away having a conversation - not the contents of it, but I hear voices, and yes they are totally distracting.

robmiller
I've been surprised too to not see more responding. I've heard gripes in other threads as an aside to whatever topic was discussed.

Thanks for the comments.

thisGuysAccount
I clicked it at work. We're in a temporary space with a few dozen 3 and 4 person offices, all have floor-to-ceiling walls and doors. The acoustics are pretty good. Even the loud talkers are tolerable, for the most part.

When we had an open office... the acoustics were terrible. Conversations at a normal volume could be heard far away, conference calls were (had to be) done on speakerphone with the volume maxed out to hear. It looked great, but it was awful for everyone who didn't enjoy talking very loudly.

Hoping that the new space has head-high partitions, maybe offices for each team with floor-to-ceiling walls, a ceiling with either pockets to reduce echoes or a proper ceiling.

An office built for working with the people we work with, not being able to talk to someone 50 feet away without walking.

robmiller
Private or semi-private offices with full height walls and absorptive ceilings are usually great.

You have the right idea on your hopes for the new space, good luck.

petervandijck
They are terrible.

I didn't realize the low ceilings were for acoustic reason. They're depressing. Isn't there another solution?

robmiller
Ceilings don't necessarily need to be low, but the less wall height, the less the walls can be a reflecting plane.

Absorptive ceilings provide (1) bulk absorption in a room and (2) reduce the primary reflecting path among open offices when there are partitions of modest height between workspaces. That they hide the mechanical and electrical crap from sight and make it very easy to service those items was supposed to be their benefit, but the pendulum has swung the other way and the "finished" look is boring now...

joshschreuder
We have some kind of fine steel grate style ceiling panels that expose the wires and stuff in the roof somewhat but you can only just see through. I think they might be for some kind of green environmental reason but I'm not too sure.

All I know is that there was an annoying clicking sound in the roof above my desk all this week distracting me, and the meeting rooms aren't sound proof because the noise travels over the walls through the roof. Not the best design.

robmiller
Its too bad if someone missed the opportunity to add some really cheap (doesn't have to look pretty) absorption above a perforated metal ceiling. Perhaps there's a stratification of heat up there generated by lights that's causing the metal to creak and pop.

Yes, meeting rooms generally need some mass to their ceiling if the walls don't go full height.

alain94040
Also if you can do something about restaurants where everyone has to yell to be heard across the table, that would be great.
robmiller
My observation is that customers and owners seem to be at odds in restauraunts. Owners want the restaurant to seem lively/busy even if it's not full and don't find quiet as a competitive edge. One chain I find bucking the trend is Chipotle. They seem to have a standard of using a wood product that looks like spaghetti on the ceiling that is fairly absorptive.
redtexture
There's more than a little academic and operations management research on the topic.

I hope a search on terms like "background noise open offices" would prove useful for reference hunting.

Here's an item:

Performance, fatigue and stress in open-plan offices: The effects of noise and restoration on hearing impaired and normal hearing individuals

By Helena Jahncke, Niklas Halin

Noise and Health (2012, Volume 14, Issue 60, Page : 260-272)

(via Archive.org - I couldn't load the article directly at the moment)

https://web.archive.org/web/20130605080737/http://www.noisea...

Also:

Open-plan offices are making workers sick, say Australian scientists

news.com.au (Jan 13, 2009)

http://www.news.com.au/open-plan-offices-make-you-sick/story...

Citing research published in Asia-Pacific Journal of Health Management. By Dr. Vinesh Oommen

Money quote: "The problem is that employers are always looking for ways to cut costs, and using open-plan designs can save 20 per cent on construction."

robmiller
Acoustical consultants are well trained in the optimization of the open office environment--there's even an ASTM standard. Over the last several years that scheme has been challenged in favor of the architect selling the owner on the industrial look (whether for aesthetic or budget) without significant consideration for the acoustic result. If an acoustical consultant is on the job and cannot win the battle for better acoustics, what is the effect of the resulting compromises?

By asking the original questions I hope to learn the results of what design considerations were included and perhaps if the millenial worker is less sensitized to office conditions of yesteryear. My suspicion on the latter is "no."

redtexture
There have been hundreds of studies in the last 20 years demonstrating via the study conclusions that for most humans, noise matters, control over one's space matters, including ability to adjust light, temperature, personal visibility and privacy, and that these can be measured by sick-leave absences, and other fairly simple productivity and personnel-cost measures.

The discussion about open offices has been in the general media for quite a while as well. For example: a few days after the original inquiry, in the general media:

"Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace: Workplaces need more walls, not fewer."

By Lindsey Kaufman - Washingyon Post - December 30, 2014

http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/12/30/g...

Cited in the article:

"The Open-Office Trap"

By Maria Konnikova - The New Yorker - January 7, 2014

http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/the-open-office-t...

This gives a lay-person's history and survey of the economics and loss of productivity of open offices.

Excerpt quotation from Konikova:

"In June, 1997, a large oil and gas company in western Canada asked a group of psychologists at the University of Calgary to monitor workers as they transitioned from a traditional office arrangement to an open one. The psychologists assessed the employees’ satisfaction with their surroundings, as well as their stress level, job performance, and interpersonal relationships before the transition, four weeks after the transition, and, finally, six months afterward. The employees suffered according to every measure: the new space was disruptive, stressful, and cumbersome, and, instead of feeling closer, coworkers felt distant, dissatisfied, and resentful. Productivity fell.

"In 2011, the organizational psychologist Matthew Davis reviewed more than a hundred studies about office environments. He found that, though open offices often fostered a symbolic sense of organizational mission, making employees feel like part of a more laid-back, innovative enterprise, they were damaging to the workers’ attention spans, productivity, creative thinking, and satisfaction. Compared with standard offices, employees experienced more uncontrolled interactions, higher levels of stress, and lower levels of concentration and motivation. When David Craig surveyed some thirty-eight thousand workers, he found that interruptions by colleagues were detrimental to productivity, and that the more senior the employee, the worse she fared.