Workstation design for organizational productivity - National ...

The layout of luminaires in relation to partitions can also contribute to soundpropagation by reflecting sound between workstations. Parabolic-louvredluminaires centred over the workstation, prismatic-lensed luminaires overpartitions, and certain lenses for indirect luminaires can be problematic.Luminaires and their placement should be considered during acoustic design.Office Etiquette: Reductions in noise, particularly distracting speech, canalso be achieved by introducing an office etiquette policy. A policy thatencourages open-plan office workers to speak more quietly, use headphonesfor music and radio, avoid speaker phones, and be aware of the noise theygenerate will help to solve noise problems.Office etiquette policies should also be supported by providing alternativefacilities, such as private meeting rooms, lunch or social rooms, even phoneconversation rooms, where employees can carry out noisier activities.COPE-CalcAs part of the COPE project, researchers developed software that helps topredict the acoustic conditions in open-plan offices by modelling the designconditions set by the user. Users can set their office characteristics (partitionheight, ceiling absorption, partition absorption, etc.), listen to a sample of thesound environment, and read suggestions for improving the design.Available at: http://irc.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/ie/cope/07.html21