Acoustic Innovation at Berlin Design Week

Berlin Design Week is not a single exhibition — it is a distributed event spread across dozens of venues, studios, and showrooms across the city, and that format rewards those willing to move between them. Our team spent three days navigating it in September, with a deliberate focus on acoustic solutions. Workplace acoustics has moved from a peripheral concern to a central one for many of our clients, and we wanted to understand where European manufacturers are taking the category. What we found was more considered — and in some cases more radical — than we expected.

Last updated: April 2026 · Reading time: 2 min

What Is the State of Workplace Acoustics in 2024?

The open-plan office has been in crisis for years. The original promise — collaboration, spontaneity, transparency — was always in tension with the practical reality of noise, distraction, and the cognitive cost of continuous partial attention. The pandemic years, which sent most knowledge workers home to spaces they could control, made the contrast viscerally clear. Returning employees brought heightened sensitivity to noise, and facilities managers found that the acoustic shortcomings they had tolerated for years were now active barriers to occupancy.

The market response has been significant. At Berlin Design Week, acoustic products occupied a larger share of commercial interior presentations than at any previous event in our experience. The trend directions we identified across multiple exhibitors were: Through our classroom furniture solutions, we help schools transform their spaces.

• Integration of acoustic function into furniture — screens, dividers, and soft seating increasingly specified with acoustic performance data rather than simply aesthetic purpose
• Suspended acoustic systems that address ceiling-reflected sound without requiring structural intervention, making them viable in listed or rented buildings
• Biophilic acoustic panels combining moss, felt, and natural fibres — products that perform acoustically while contributing to air quality and visual calm
• Pod and booth systems that have matured significantly in design quality, moving away from the utilitarian aesthetic of early iterations towards pieces that hold their own in considered interior schemes

What German Engineering Brings to the Category

German manufacturing culture has a particular relationship with acoustic performance. Where some markets approach acoustics as a styling layer applied after the fact, the German approach we encountered at Berlin Design Week tends to start from performance specification and build aesthetics around it. This produces products that are sometimes less immediately arresting visually, but that deliver consistent, testable, documented results — and that hold up under independent acoustic measurement rather than relying on manufacturer claims alone.

Several manufacturers we met publish full acoustic absorption coefficients across frequency bands, tested under EN ISO 354 and expressed as weighted sound absorption coefficients (aw). This level of transparency is not yet universal in the UK market, and it is something we are increasingly asking of suppliers as we build out our acoustic offering. Specifying by tested performance rather than visual category is a meaningful upgrade in professional practice, and one that clients with noise-sensitive environments are beginning to request.

What Acoustic Design Insights Did We Bring Back from Berlin?

Three practical shifts we are making to our acoustic specification approach following Berlin:

1. All acoustic products we specify will now carry EN ISO 354 test data as a baseline requirement — aesthetic performance alone is no longer sufficient for inclusion in our portfolio
2. We are expanding our suspended ceiling system range following strong performance showings from two manufacturers we had not previously worked with
3. We are developing a simple acoustic audit process for existing spaces, giving clients a starting point for understanding where acoustic investment will deliver the greatest return before any product is specified

Workplace acoustics is no longer a finishing touch. For organisations serious about productivity, wellbeing, and the genuine appeal of their office environment, it sits alongside lighting and air quality as a fundamental of good design. The products and knowledge to address it properly exist — and after Berlin, our ability to deploy them is stronger than it has ever been.