A meeting room is a space for which the objective in terms of acoustics is to offer to the participants (actors or spectators of the meeting) a comfort for speech and listening during an extended period of time even though, (especially in the frequency range 500-2000 Hz), the speech intelligibility may be insufficient due to inappropriate quality of the construction (sometimes: although the premises are recent and therefore supposed to take into account the auditory well-being of the occupants as it should be self-evident nowadays).

For a meeting room, such a symptom of a lack of acoustic comfort frequently causing recriminations can (often) be directly related to an excessive reverberation of the considered space and (thus) require remedial actions in terms of sound insulation in buildings.

Indeed, the results of the reverberation time measurements carried out in such cases often indicate that the internal acoustics of the space under consideration are perfectible, notwithstanding the absence of specific regulations applicable in this case. 

ITS will contribute to improve meeting room acoustic comfort (the romm being capable of accommodating up to 120 people), near Lyon (Rhône-Alpes region, France) in relation to a situation involving existing office premises (yet new) that one might consider (at least for some of them), unsuitable for their use since they are perfectly devoid of materials capable of absorbing sounds.

The improvement of the acoustic performance (in relation to its duration of reverberation) of what is for the time being a very reverberant ready-to-fit platform will imply the use of absorbent acoustic linings for some walls and for the roof (the considered space is located on the top floor of an office building) carefully selected for their acoustical properties.

On the one hand, the design of the installations aiming at increasing auditory comfort, based on a distribution of the absorbent materials and on installation systems harmonized with the existing architectural choice (i.e. the enhancement of the metal elements of building structure and envelope) and on the other hand the selection of colors particularly becoming and luminous will contribute - no doubt - to obtain a meeting room keeping all promises, i.e. where it will be good to meet to inquire, to share information and even to debate in a constructive way as it should in a professional context.

Improving the acoustics of this meeting room will be done in conjunction with hand-picked ITS business partners.

Acoustic comfort in buildings end faq