Why Acoustic Treatment Matters

The human ear is brilliant at picking out one voice in a quiet room and almost useless when reverberation time creeps above 0.8 seconds. In a typical untreated open-plan office, reverberation runs 1.0–1.4s; in older school halls and converted classrooms it’s often worse. The result is the cocktail-party effect at scale: people raise their voices, the room gets louder, concentration collapses, headaches arrive by 3pm. The fix is rarely a single dramatic intervention — it’s a calibrated mix of absorptive surfaces (panels, rafts, baffles), spatial separation (pods, screens, booths) and sometimes masking. We measure, model, then specify.

What We Supply

• Acoustic pods — single, two, four and six-person pods for focus work, private calls, 1:1 meetings, SEN regulation, SaLT and pastoral conversations. Class 0 fire-rated, with antimicrobial fabrics, integrated ventilation and lockable or transparent doors.
• Wall panels — printed, plain or 3D-textured PET-felt and mineral-wool panels in any RAL or Pantone colour. Class A absorption (αw 0.95+) for the most reflective rooms.
• Ceiling rafts and baffles — suspended absorbers for rooms with hard ceilings or exposed services. The single highest-impact treatment per m² in most open-plan offices.
• Desk and floor screens — freestanding and clamp-on screens that block direct speech paths between workstations without enclosing them.
• Acoustic furniture — high-back booth seating, sofa pods, phone booths and acoustic meeting tables for breakout zones.
• SEN-specific solutions — soft, low-arousal acoustic treatment for sensory rooms and nurture hubs, designed to reduce overall sound pressure without creating dead, unsettling rooms.

Our Acoustic Process

1. Site survey and measurement. We measure existing reverberation time (T60) and, where speech intelligibility is critical, speech transmission index (STI). Survey is free for projects we’re tendering on.
2. Acoustic modelling. We model the room with proposed absorption to confirm we’ll hit your target reverberation time before specifying anything.
3. Specification. Panels, rafts, pods and screens specified to performance and aesthetics — finishes selected to match your brand or school palette.
4. Installation. Out-of-hours or holiday installation as standard. Pods are typically delivered fully assembled; panels and rafts installed with minimal disruption.
5. Post-install verification. We re-measure on completion to confirm the scheme has hit its acoustic target.

Open-Plan Offices: Quick Wins for Speech Wash

If your open-plan office is “too loud” the diagnosis is almost always reverberation, not raw decibels. Three quick wins, in order of cost-effectiveness: (1) ceiling rafts — cover 30–40% of ceiling area with Class A absorbers; (2) tall desk screens between facing workstations to break direct speech paths; (3) one or two acoustic pods so the loudest activity (calls, video meetings) leaves the open zone entirely. Most offices we treat see reverberation drop from 1.0–1.2s to under 0.6s, which is the threshold where people stop raising their voices and the room self-quiets.

Classrooms & BB93 Compliance

Building Bulletin 93 (DfE) sets the acoustic standard for new schools and major refurbishments. The headline targets: indoor ambient noise level (LAeq,30min) ≤ 35 dB for general teaching, ≤ 30 dB for SEN/listening-critical spaces; reverberation time (T60) ≤ 0.6s for primary classrooms, ≤ 0.8s for secondary, ≤ 0.4s for SEN. We design every classroom acoustic scheme to meet or exceed these — and on existing schools where BB93 isn’t legally mandatory, we still target it because pupils with English as an additional language, hearing impairment or SEN gain disproportionately from a quieter room.

Acoustic Pods for Schools

Acoustic pods solve a different problem in schools than they do in offices. Schools use them for SEN regulation rooms, 1:1 SaLT or counselling, peer mentoring, small-group withdrawal and quiet revision. Safeguarding sightlines matter, so we usually specify transparent or half-glazed doors. Antimicrobial fabrics, robust upholstery, soft edges and lockable-from-outside-only options are standard for school specs.

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