Acoustical Privacy Research Articles

Natural ventilation and acoustic privacy in settlement cores: a review of window technology and night-time economy planning policy

This study reviewed the potential of partially open windows to address the challenges of natural ventilation and night-time airborne noise within settlement cores. These areas, which often feature historic buildings, require sensitive interventions to balance the conservation of heritage with the need for liveable, sustainable cities. The 'night-time economy' (NTE) encompasses a diverse range of businesses, services, and events that operate beyond traditional daytime hours, such as restaurants, bars, nightclubs, entertainment venues, cultural events, and 24-hour services. Night-time noise disturbances can be detrimental to residents' health and well-being. A case study examined the solutions proposed by contemporary NTE planning policy to address night-time noise in settlement cores, particularly in instances where the expansion of NTE areas and extended trading hours are considered. No physical solution mitigation strategies for noise reduction were identified in the NTE policy, and only a management approach was proposed. This study examines the potential of innovative acoustically attenuated partially open windows as a strategic solution to airborne night-time noise pollution from a night-time economy. This solution may improve energy efficiency and sustainability in cities while allowing the night-time economy and residential areas to coexist more harmoniously.

Sound flanking through common low-voltage electrical conduit in multi-family residential buildings

Sound flanking between suites in multi-family residential buildings is a prevalent issue in architectural acoustics and building construction that can decrease the sound insulation performance of suite-demising partitions, compromising acoustical privacy and comfort for residents. In recent times, a specific deficiency regarding the sealing of common low-voltage electrical conduit routed between residential suites has been increasing in frequency in construction of residential buildings, resulting in otherwise appropriately designed suite demising configurations performing poorly in situ, and in some cases, even failing Ontario Building Code requirements for sound insulation between dwelling spaces during site testing. This article presents test data sampled from multiple residential buildings in Ontario, highlighting the extent of this issue and its implications, along with discussion regarding the proactive prevention and post-construction rectification of this issue.

The formula for acoustical privacy

The Reflections series takes a look back on historical articles from The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America that have had a significant impact on the science and practice of acoustics.

Investigation of the Proper Sound Levels of Artificial Masking Sounds for the Speech Privacy in Open-Plan Offices

The present study aims to investigate the optimum level of masking sounds which can satisfy with both the occupants and acoustical privacy. In order to this, prior investigation was accomplished to know real condition of open-plan offices using questionnaire survey to 115 people. Also, acoustic listening experiments were done to 30 people with 5 scale point questionnaire. Recorded voice was played with the output sound level of 57 dB at 1m from the directional speaker. Artificial making sounds were also radiated from the ceiling speakers using pink noise. Making sounds used in the experiments consisted of 5 different sound levels which have SNR of 10, 13, 16, 19 and 22 dB. Using questionnaire, three responses from occupants were received including speech intelligibility, annoyance of masking sounds, and overall unpleasantness. As a result, it was found that SNR 22 is appropriate for the decrease of annoyance of masking sounds and overall unpleasantness while SNR 16 to SNR 19 is considered to be suitable for the reduction of speech intelligibility and the annoyance of masking sounds.

A case study on flanking noise transmission through curtain wall in an office building

Curtain walls are a popular architectural element for the design of modern commercial building façade. With the advanced technologies and recent developments in building materials, curtain walls are developed with different lightweight materials, providing a spectacular visual identity of buildings and a number of functional design advantages to building interiors, including acoustic comfort, weather resistance, and thermal comfort. With the availability of high-performing glazed curtain walls these days, external noise in a commercial building adjacent to busy roads and railway lines is easily controlled, and acoustic comfort at internal space be achieved to suit the design intent. However, the lack of building design integration between building envelop, structural, and interior systems would often lead to airborne flanking noise transmission between different occupancies resulting in poor acoustic privacy. Such a post-design issue is often undesirable to the occupants and is an expensive exercise to retrofit. In this paper, a case study is conducted in a building where office workers in a three-story office building raised concerns about noise annoyance and acoustic privacy between two different tenancies on levels one above the other. This paper discusses the acoustic issues causing the compromised acoustic privacy, the method of acoustic investigations, the recommended noise control mechanisms, and finally the outcome of mitigation measures.

Indoor soundscape model: Assessing contextual factors in open-plan offices on university campuses in Surabaya, Indonesia

Evaluation research in Western countries shows that soundscape perception and work behaviour in an open-plan office are negative due to uncontrolled sound levels and diminished visual and acoustic privacy. This condition resulted in a noteworthy diminution in employee performance and comfort. Most offices in large cities, including those in Indonesia, also follow the trend of adopting an open-plan system. For this reason, it is necessary to conduct further studies in the local environment. Contextual experience is a key aspect in indoor soundscape studies, of which subjective evaluation is an important part. This study further investigates the causal relationship between contextual factors related to space usage and personal and demographic aspects on psychological, expectation, soundscape perception, and work behaviour aspects. The questionnaire survey was conducted on full-time employees at six administrative offices on two university campuses in Surabaya. Partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyse statistically the collected data and to test the formulated hypotheses. The results reveal a significant path from personal and demographical to psychological, which has the highest estimated t value of 9.438 and is supported by a significance level of p < .01 (t0.01>2.58). Social-cultural characteristic indicators, namely, societal values and lifestyle, have the highest loading and consequently have a large influence on soundscape perception and work behaviour in the local environment. This results in certain work behaviour reflected in the reactions, responses, soundscape preferences, and activities of employees working in the local environment, which differs from that of those residing in Western countries.

Relationship between the design characteristics of activity-based flexible offices and users’ perceptions of privacy and social interactions

ABSTRACT Activity-based flexible offices (AFOs) provide a variety of workspaces to meet the need for social interactions and privacy at work. This study investigates the relationship between the design characteristics of AFOs and users’ perceptions of visual and acoustic privacy and social interactions. This case study is based on post-occupancy evaluations in three AFO layouts at a public service organization in Sweden. A mixed-method approach is adopted that combines questionnaires and layout analysis. In general, the results showed that while aesthetics received the highest satisfaction scores, office functionality, task support, storage and visual and acoustic privacy received the lowest ratings. Key design characteristics for AFOs were operationalized, observed and exemplified: zone diversity, proportion, readability, spatial enclosure, sharing ratios and functionality of furniture and tools. These insights may contribute to better-informed decisions about the design characteristics that influence privacy and social interactions in AFOs.

Informing the acoustical privacy of mothers’ rooms with measurement data

Mothers’ rooms (also referred to as lactation rooms) have become more prominent in workplaces in the United States in recent decades. Since the amendment of Fair Labor Standards Act in 2010, employers in the United States with more than 50 employees have been required to provide a non-restroom space for mothers to nurse or pump breast milk. Such spaces are often designed to offer privacy and comfort—however, little consideration has been given to the acoustical criteria that would be appropriate for these spaces. To inform the development of best practice criteria for sound isolation, a sample of different breast pump models from different manufacturers has been measured to estimate the range of sound power levels and spectral content associated with lactation pump noise. Comparisons are then made between pump noise levels and common workplace wall constructions to test the efficacy of published sound isolation criteria. Additional consideration is given to the unique usage of this space type in comparison to common adjacency types to propose a data-driven sound isolation criteria for mothers’ rooms. Results from this effort also aim to inform further work towards developing criteria for reverberation time and background noise levels in mothers’ rooms.

Acoustical privacy in the built environment: Past, present and future

Although the need to consider acoustics in the built environment is well-accepted, an understanding of 'what' constitutes 'good acoustics' is not. The authors present posteriori-reviews of historical events and of empirical evidence-to develop an understanding of the current landscape of Standards, Guidelines, and Codes. More specifically, special attention is devoted to the development of speech privacy metrics, as well as that of auditory and non-auditory effects of noise and sound on health. With a refreshed understanding of theory, a priori-i.e., an acoustical framework for design and/or performance verification with a special interest in speech privacy-is renewed and its impacts on the ongoing development of Standards, Guidelines and Codes is discussed.

The Effect of Different Specifications of Passive Spaces on Residents’ Satisfaction in Adjoining Spaces ‎within a ‎Hot Dry ‎Climate

Passive spaces are a passive design strategy that aims to reduce energy ‎consumption ‎and increase ‎user ‎satisfaction ‎in buildings. One ‎example of passive space is ‎the air shaft. The air ‎shaft ‎is a ‎vertical void within the building from the ground level to the roof level, and it ‎provides the ‎building with ‎natural ‎ventilation ‎and ‎daylight, ‎especially in deep-plan ‎buildings. However, ‎the ‎function of the ‎air ‎shaft ‎is ‎questioned ‎due to its impacts on residents’ needs. ‎This ‎study assesses the effects of air ‎shaft ‎specifications on ‎residents’ ‎satisfaction with the indoor ‎environment ‎quality of ‎air shafts and ‎adjoining ‎spaces. Survey ‎questionnaires were ‎distributed ‎to ‎residents of ‎apartment ‎buildings. The results ‎proved that air shafts ‎have a ‎significant ‎negative ‎impact on ‎residents’ ‎satisfaction. The ‎findings of cross-tabulation ‎analysis illustrate a significant ‎relationship ‎between ‎the air ‎shafts’ specifications and ‎the ‎residents’ answers.‎ The ‎analysis also showed that the air ‎shafts ‎that are ‎closed from the ‎bottom and include A\C outdoor units ‎have a more negative ‎impact on ‎the thermal ‎environment and ‎air quality. Regarding ‎the air shaft areas, the small areas have ‎a ‎high ‎negative ‎response regarding bad smell, the view, visual ‎and ‎acoustic privacy, and thermal ‎environment. ‎From ‎the ‎indoor ‎environment quality perspective, this ‎study ‎emphasizes ‎the need ‎to consider the ‎impact of ‎air ‎shaft design on a ‎building’s ‎performance ‎and ‎residents’ ‎satisfaction. The results of this study are expected to contribute to the development of future passive spaces design.

“Acoustics” as a “system”—A refreshed narrative leading change in standards, codes, and guidelines

Although “acoustics” is widely understood to be in relation to the person, it is—more correctly—a branch of physics that studies the behavior of mechanical energy in media. In contrast, “psychoacoustics” concerns itself with the perception (or psychology) of sound and the associated physiological effects. The disassociation is best exemplified by traditional architectural acoustical design schemes—i.e., “acceptable-level” and “categorization”—which are prevalent throughout existing Standards, Codes, and Guidelines. The result, as evidenced by the meta-analysis of modern and sustainable best practices by a group at Harvard, is an Indoor Environment Quality parameter that does not consistently score better, and in several studies, results in lower satisfaction scores with noise. This presentation presents posteriori—correlations between “occupant satisfaction” and “acoustical satisfaction,” “acoustical satisfaction” and “acoustical privacy,” and “acoustical privacy” and “health and well-being”—to justify the pitfalls of traditional strategies, and to develop a priori—a framework for “good acoustics.” This refreshed narrative, to consider acoustics as a system, leads change among the most popular sustainability and well-being Standards, such as WELL, Green Globes, and LEED. This presentation endeavors to summarize notable updates and to identify new risks and challenges associated with recent versions of the aforementioned documents.

The Role of Apartments Interior Design on Individual Privacy: Residential Buildings in Erbil as a Case Study

Privacy refers to the control of how much information about an individual should be allowed into the public domain. Individual privacy in an apartment building refers to the blockage of information within an individual room within the family apartment. Previous studies have given less attention on the privacy of residential apartments which this study focuses on. This research paper aims to explore the role of interior design in providing individual privacy in residential buildings. With time, more demand for apartment buildings is experienced and people are preferring more private places as physical connections become rare. As such, the question of how to maintain individual privacy with the population increase and reduced need for physical connections prompted the study. To assess the interior design privacy of the apartments, an observational case study was applied. Eight residential buildings in Erbil formed the research sample and they were assessed using a Likert scale to obtain average values of each variable. The findings show that interior design elements tend to influence visual and acoustical privacy to a great extent. The choice of the interior design materials has an impact on the overall rating of building on protecting both acoustical and visual privacy. Results show no correlation between visual and acoustical privacy for the individual for the same project. The interior design of Shahan city apartment presents the worst regarding to individual privacy. The study concludes that in order to increase the value of housing unit, it should maintain the individual privacy within the limitations of the societies. It is recommended that privacy achieved by controlling architectural elements of interior design of the apartment should raise its value. It is also recommended that the local and national governments strengthen policies regulating interior designs norms to reduce the lack of individual privacy.

Measuring the high life: A method for assessing apartment design policy implementation

This paper introduces a comprehensive method to measure the implementation of residential apartment design policies in Australia. It describes a protocol for extracting and measuring potentially health-enhancing policy-specific design requirements derived from three current residential apartment design policies in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. These requirements focus on ten key design elements: (1) solar access, (2) natural ventilation, (3) private open space, (4) communal open space, (5) circulation spaces, (6) acoustic privacy, (7) outlook and (8) visual privacy, (9) bicycle and car parking and (10) apartment mix. This paper also describes the computation of scores to quantify the levels of on-ground implementation of the design requirements and compliance with the policies. The method will allow researchers to objectively quantify, benchmark and assess the uptake of apartment policy in apartment design and construction to inform future policy development.• Measurements were developed to systematically assess apartment buildings for their implementation of specific design requirements stipulated by State Government design policies.• Policy implementation was defined as the degree to which the apartment buildings adhered to the requirements outlined by the apartment design policies. A scoring system was developed to quantify policy implementation at both the apartment and building levels.• This method can be replicated to allow researchers to objectively quantify, benchmark and assess the uptake of apartment policy in apartment design and construction to inform future policy development.

OBSERVATION OF FEMALE DORM PRIVACY IN ISLAMIC BOARDING SCHOOLS IN WEST JAVA, INDONESIA

In learning activity processes in Islamic boarding schools, students must study and live in a dormitory. It functions to replace a residential home where the privacy aspect should be taken into consideration. This study aims to observe the privacy aspects closely related to the female students' bedrooms, covering six elements examined in five case studies, including the sex-segregated dormitories, the main function of staying, visual privacy on the dimensions height of the windows, acoustic privacy, and olfactory privacy in terms of the connection between dormitory rooms. It was found that the privacy aspect in the dormitory room still lacked attention due to the addition of space functions and bathroom facilities in it. Meanwhile, adding personal facilities, such as storage and study areas, could enhance the students' privacy. Especially for the type of student bedroom, it is necessary to provide a place for drying clothes by utilizing the balcony area. Besides that, it is required to pay attention to the type, dimensions direction of window openings so that the level of privacy of female students will be more optimal.

A Study of Workspace Design Characteristics Exemplified by Nurses' Satisfaction Within Three Intensive Care Units in a University Hospital.

The critical conditions of intensive care patients require providing them with a higher acuity of care. Thus, it is essential to focus on critical care nurses and improve their work environment in a way that maximizes productivity, collaboration, satisfaction, and leads to improved patient care. This study aims to explore the role the workplace layout design play in determining nurses' satisfaction in three intensive care units (ICUs) at a university hospital. A prospective, cross-sectional, single-center, survey-based design was employed in this study. Data were obtained, via a standardized questionnaire, from 36 morning shift nurses. The nurses' self-reported satisfaction scores in three different ICUs with differing overall layouts, nursing station locations, and workplace design were statistically compared. The study found that ICU 1 (private rooms, single corridor, central nursing station, close to supported services) had higher nursing satisfaction levels than ICUs 2 and 3 (open wards with separate service zones), F(2,34) = 5.054, p = .012. However, overall satisfaction was higher with the ICU 2 primary workspace design, possibly due to the perceived acoustic privacy in this configuration, F(2,34)= 4.492, p = .019. The ability of the ICU layout design to enhance teamwork and minimize traffic in patients care areas was found to be an important predictor of nurses' satisfaction. The primary workspace design capacity to minimize congestion and the presence of large numbers of providers in a confined workplace might account for variation in nurses' satisfaction. Physical environment variables in the ICU design may contribute to staff workplace satisfaction scores and may help in guiding informed choices regarding the future ICU design.

An evaluation of the policy and practice of designing and implementing healthy apartment design standards in three Australian cities

Apartment development has proliferated around the world; however concern about design quality has prompted the introduction of comprehensive apartment design policies. Effective implementation of these policies promises to improve design outcomes and create apartments conducive to good health. This study benchmarked whether design requirements linked to health and wellbeing from three Australian states, each with different levels of design governance, were being implemented. Residential apartment buildings (built 2006–2016) were sampled from Sydney, Perth and Melbourne. Data were extracted from plans and elevations to calculate the implementation of quantifiable policy-specific requirements (n = 122) for all residential apartments (n = 10,553) and floors (n = 1094) within the buildings (n = 172). Scores were computed for design objectives (e.g., indoor and private open space, daylight, natural ventilation, acoustic privacy, visual privacy) and overall policy implementation. Sydney and Perth buildings implemented 60% and 55% of all the measured requirements, respectively, whereas Melbourne implemented 43% (p = 0.000). At the time the buildings were developed, Sydney had a comprehensive performance-based design policy and Perth had some prescriptive design standards, whereas Melbourne had discretionary design guidance only. While local contextual factors also contributed to on-ground design outcomes, the findings underscored the importance of design regulation in delivering contemporary apartment buildings that include the design features that could promote residents’ health.

Acoustical Conformance with FGI for Tenant Improvements in Outpatient, Medical Office or Clinic Facility Sound Isolation/Privacy Design

Acoustical privacy and noise control design and implementation guidance is needed, regarding Facility Guidelines Institute (FGI) criteria for outpatient medical facilty tenant improvements (TI). TI in existing commercial buildings or medical office buildings may not have capital budgets or expected facility/lease life that hospitals enjoy. Full conformance to FGI criteria and guidelines may be limited; by economic feasibility and by constructability. Design professionals can use "good practice" space planning, demising assembly selection, and electronic sound masking to achieve appropriate acoustical privacy within reasonable capital expense budgets. Consider FGI criteria for demising partition, ceiling, door and window selections plus infrastructure equipment and material selections that can provide cost-effective lightweight, common construction standards. The objectives are to protect the privacy of patient information and provide quiet spaces, free of transient disturbance for clear speech communications. Continuous ambient sound increases speech privacy including speech transmitted from enclosed quiet spaces. Criteria for acoustics, speech privacy,continuous noise and masking exists in FGI. Temporal level changes (on/off, transients) and tonality (spectrum smoothness or balance) should be considered in basis-of-design (BoD). This paper will present design guidelines for selecting demising assemblies and supplemental sound masking for outpatient clinical spaces in commercial or medical office buildings.

Study of various wood stud partitions with various gypsum board and proprietary acoustical sound insulation products

Wood stud construction is common in residential and hospitality buildings in some parts of the U.S.; however, there is a deficiency of field-tested sound insulation performance of partitions constructed with wood studs that are spaced closer than 16" on center. This study presents the sound isolation measurement results of a set of fifteen partitions within an existing facility that has been experiencing repeated complaints of poor acoustic privacy between horizontally adjacent spaces. The tested partition types varied between single stud, double stud, and single studs with resilient channel constructions. The walls had four materials of varying combinations applied, including 19/32" OSB, Type X gypsum board, proprietary enhanced gypsum board, and proprietary mass loaded vinyl. It was shown that the partition with enhanced gypsum board performed better than the same partition with Type X, the double stud partition performed lower than expected, and the addition of mass loaded vinyl to both double and single stud partitions did not affect the ASTC rating, among other findings.

Conceptual model of soundscape perception based on working behaviour in open-plan offices

The open-plan office is one of the most popular and preferred workspace arrangement options for employers today. The results of research in western countries show that listeners’ perceptions of the soundscape in open-plan offices are negative, due to reduced visual and acoustic privacy and uncontrolled sound levels. This can cause a significant decrease in work comfort and productivity. Several researchers have provided acoustic design solutions by performing adequate speech control through several solutions such as creating spacing between workstations, the use of acoustic dampening materials, insulation between workstations, and application of a noise masking system. The phenomenon of adopting an open-plan office has also hit offices in big cities in the world, including in Indonesia. The purpose of this paper is to further examine listeners’ perceptions of the soundscape in the case of open-plan offices in the local environment because the results are indicated to be different from similar cases in western countries, given the peculiarities of employee work behaviour which are influenced by individual experiences and social effects in the local environment are also different. For this reason, a comprehensive literature review method is needed that aims to investigate the relationship between soundscape perceptions and working behaviour in open-plan offices in the local environment and then to create an integrated conceptual model so that further researchers can evaluate the research related to these problems.

The experience of patients in an outpatient infusion facility: a qualitative study

PurposeAs hospitals are now being designed with an increasing number of single rooms or cubicles, the individual preference of patients with respect to social contact is of great interest. The purpose of this study is to gain a better understanding of the experience of patients in an outpatient infusion center.Design/methodology/approachA total of 29 semi-structured interviews were conducted, transcribed and analyzed by using direct content analysis.FindingsFindings showed that patients perceived a lack of acoustic privacy and therefore tried to emotionally isolate themselves or withheld information from staff. In addition, patients complained about the sounds of infusion pumps, but they were neutral about the interior features. Patients who preferred non-talking desired enclosed private rooms and perceived negative distraction because of spatial crowding. In contrast, patients who preferred talking, or had no preference, desired shared rooms and perceived positive distraction because of spatial crowding.Research limitations/implicationsIn conclusion, results showed a relation between physical aspects (i.e. physical enclosure) and the social environment.Practical implicationsThe findings allow facility managers to better understand the patients’ experiences in an outpatient infusion facility and to make better-informed decisions. Patients with different preferences desired different physical aspects. Therefore, nursing staff of outpatient infusion centers should assess the preferences of patients. Moreover, architects should integrate different types of treatment places (i.e. enclosed private rooms and shared rooms) in new outpatient infusion centers to fulfill different preferences and patients should have the opportunity to discuss issues in private with nursing staff.Originality/valueThis study emphasizes the importance of a mix of treatment rooms, while new hospital designs mainly include single rooms or cubicles.