Acoustical comfort in office buildings

Deniz Artan, Esin Ergen, Isilay Tekce

Research output: Contribution to journalConference articlepeer-review

12 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This paper aims to provide insight to decision makers such as designers, facility managers and renovators of office buildings on how office occupants perceive acoustical comfort. In the first step, a detailed literature analysis was performed to determine the main criteria that can be used to measure acoustical comfort in office buildings. In the second step, interviews were undertaken with 12 facility managers, and work orders related to acoustical comfort were extracted from facility management and computerized maintenance management software systems. As a result, a list of occupant feedback and complaint types related to acoustical comfort were determined and a hierarchical structure was established. In the third step, a survey was conducted with 308 office employees to determine (1) the importance and satisfaction levels in acoustical comfort criteria and (2) number of respondents who have complaints in each complaint type. The findings present the common reasons behind acoustical discomfort and consequences of poor acoustical performance. It can be concluded that the occupants are more dissatisfied with the lack of acoustical privacy than with the level of noise or echo. In terms of noise level, occupants are most dissatisfied by ‘noise due to conversations’ compared to other sources of noise such as footsteps, ventilation or office equipment.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)145-149
Number of pages5
JournalProceedings of the Annual International Conference on Architecture and Civil Engineering
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2019
Event7th Annual International Conference on Architecture and Civil Engineering, ACE 2019 - Singapore, Singapore
Duration: 27 May 201928 May 2019

Keywords

  • Acoustical comfort
  • Occupant satisfaction
  • Office buildings

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Acoustical comfort in office buildings'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this