Acoustic of open-plan offices

In recent years, the world of work has undergone profound changes that have a significant impact on the physical spaces where people work. In the case of offices, there has been a shift from individual offices to open-plan spaces in, capable of accommodating multiple workstations. This change, in addition to generating cost savings, has led to an entirely new way of experiencing the workplace, transitioning from a more private space to a collective one. Over the years, research has focused extensively on the subjective satisfaction levels of workers. In the field of acoustics, particular attention has been given to the detrimental effects of Irrilevant Speech Noise (ISN), a parameter that defines the level of noise generated by conversations among workers, phone calls, and other noises they produce. It has been shown that this ISN negatively influences cognitive performance, physical and mental health, and productivity of those working in such offices. The purpose of this thesis is to provide elements for the design of open-plan offices in order to ensure maximum acoustic comfort. The indicators describing the acoustic quality of an office are specified in the UNI ISO 3382-3:2022 standard. During the initial phase of this research, measurements of the aforementioned parameters were conducted in three different offices at the Intesa San Paolo headquarters in Milan. The measurements were performed following the procedure described in the reference standard UNI ISO 3382-3:2022. Once the measurements were taken, the data was analyzed and the results showed poor acoustic quality in these open-plan offices. Most of the values found did not fall within the optimal ranges provided by the standard. The next step involves designing elements to improve the acoustic quality of these environments. To achieve this, the acoustic simulation software Odeon was utilized. By modeling the spaces of interest, the software allows us to simulate acoustic measurements and provides the parameters described in the standard. This enables us to assess the effectiveness of improvement interventions. Regarding office space design, a bibliographic research has been conducted on the trends of modern offices. This research has provided useful insights for rethinking these spaces and has been a source of ideas for designing furniture elements that also have acoustic functions, such as movable partitions and sound-absorbing elements. The project is based on the quantity of absorbing surface area, absorption coefficients of materials and the use of acoustic elememts like baffle, screen and cubicles. The combination of these elements and their precise design allows us to significantly alter the acoustic conditions of the environments, aiming to achieve the optimal values described in the standard and providing an environment of optimal acoustic comfort. In conclusion, it is demonstrated that acoustic parameters can be improved through conscious design that maximizes the sound-absorbing power of materials, utilizes acoustic elements, and considering the functional requirements demanded by the work environment.