The Sweetest Sound: acousticpearls

I wondered as I sat there with my fingers in my ears what it must look like to my fellow passengers. A grown man, clearly uncomfortable.

I’m not in the business of drawing attention to myself, you understand, but as I waited at the departure gate at Venice Airport recently for my delayed flight home from this year’s Biennale, the reverberating cacophony of hundreds of agitated voices, combined with deafening loudspeaker announcements, was all a little too much.

“We’re designing environments that make us crazy,” says international sound consultant Julian Treasure in a persuasive TED talk entitled “Why architects need to use their ears.” “Sound affects us physiologically, psychologically, cognitively and behaviourally,” he argues, “even if we’re not conscious of it.”

As unconscious as we sometimes are of the negative impact excessive noise levels have on us, so too are architectural students often unaware of the central role effective sound management plays in successful building design. Acoustics have traditionally been low on the agenda when it comes to architectural training. An aural afterthought to those visually spectacular, photogenic spaces, designed to delight the eyes beyond any other sense.

Yet we know that architectural space that considers the way sound functions within it is key to effective communication, not to mention well-being. Unmanaged talking in open-plan offices can reduce productivity of others by up to 66%. That’s clearly not good for business. Treasure gives a clarion call for architects to open their ears, to realise that acoustics are always present. It’s a question of whether we want to bring them centre-stage, or allow them to be shaped as a quasi-accidental by-product.

If anyone has their ears open, it’s international design manufacturer acousticpearls. Based in Bremen, North Germany, they’ve been listening clearly to architects, interior architects and planners for almost a decade now, creating premium, architectural products that help shape interior space and manage the sound that operates within it. Their success is based on the interior-design and engineering competencies of MD Clemens Lünig and his team, and on a strong dialogue with building professionals that has seen the implementation of total design solutions that deftly marry the aesthetic with the acoustic.

Their strongly graphic and chromatically expressive (yet never dominant) products – which range from modular wall-panel systems and stand-alone space-dividers to suspended ceiling elements and even space-within-space pods – have been specified for work and living spaces across a range of typologies, including offices, banks and lobbies. Daniele Tundo from Austrian office-furniture manufacturer Bene – which recently invited acousticpearls to partner with them on the redesign of the offices of Munich Airport’s project-management team – makes the important point that the relation between spaces for living and those for industry is no longer such a binary one.

“Offices are also living environments, which have to be designed in such a way as to motivate their users and support their health,” he says. “Which is why we choose to work with first-class, innovative brands, like acousticpearls, that allow us to operate in a holistic way.” Almost 600 square metres of conventional workspace at the airport were transformed by the team into an open and flexible landscape, with areas designed for collaborative teamwork and spaces for individual, concentrated work.

acousticpearls’ free-standing Architects Textile panel system was specified in a restrained blue-grey to be installed above filing cabinets and storage units, absorbing sound within the open-plan space while affording workers a certain degree of visual privacy. “We work in a challenging business,” explains Tundo, “and the demands of our clients are extremely diverse. acousticpearls is becoming, if it’s not already, the one-stop-shop when it comes to acoustics. Its Greenguard certification and commitment to taking back used panels, moreover, only serve to convince our clients in the project business even more.”

When the Raiffeisen Bank in Frick, Switzerland, commissioned Brem+Zehnder to deliver a more friendly, more relaxed environment for its customers – somewhere they would actually enjoy spending time – the interior-architectural office turned to acousticpearls to help shape the soundscape. Throughout the space, and in contrast to the warm and rich expression of the walnut flooring, muted-in-tone Color Fields modular wall panels have been used to create a pleasing visual texture, while dampening excessive noise levels.

“The colours of the panels work beautifully with the project as a whole,” says Kristin Tanner of Brem+Zehnder. “It’s this combination of discreet, not dominant, colours, and the products’ sustainable, environmental credentials that really differentiates acousticpearls from other brands.”

This high level of integration and dialogue between acousticpearls’ products and the interior architecture into which they find themselves deployed is also clear to see in Frankfurt-based office MOHO 1’s Sparkasse Giessen project. When one of the German bank’s interiors required a new fit-out, acoustics were given a stake at the top-table.

Full-height Wall Cover system panels (expressed in a limited palette of greys, black and red) were used to lend various spaces within the offices a highly graphic, yet calming, optical texture and rhythm; both large and small free-standing Architects Textile acoustic panels, meanwhile, punctuate the space within open rooms, delivering visual privacy for staffers in addition to productivity-boosting sound management. “It’s not just about the products, however,” says MOHO 1 managing director Mosaffar Honarmand. “The quality of collaboration with the acousticpearls team also make them an excellent partner. Even when confronted with a challenging situation from the outset, they always strive to find the best solution.”

The acoustic experts’ adeptness and agility when it comes to project-partnering was not an insignificant factor in the company’s recent acquisition by premium Swiss textile manufacturer Création Baumann. Their union, which sees a clever cross-leveraging of competencies (unparalleled acoustics-product know-how on the one hand and high-quality, innovative textile manufacturing on the other), provides the foundation for a strategic expansion of the acousticpearls brand’s product portfolio. Architects, and interior architects and designers, will be able to benefit from a wider offering when it comes to professional services and support for their projects, too. In short, it’s a smart bit of interweaving.

Never was the sound of sound management so sweet.

© Architonic