This year, Zenfeel is off to a racing start. This February we completed a project that has fast become one of our favourites, not only for its style, but also for its size. An office in Shanghai spanning 3,700m2 was undergoing a full renovation, and decided to use Zenfeel products to achieve a comfortable acoustic balance for employees. Ultimately, a whopping 1,800m2 of acoustic products were installed, in collaboration with Annie Xu from Steven Leach Group. In this article, we’re going to show how and where this was done.
Break room
The break room on this floor is huge and open-plan, leading to other parts of the office on all four sides. There was a lot of opportunity for noise generated by employees on their downtime to reverberate into other parts of the office, where colleagues may need peace and quiet.
Here, three products were craftily employed to reduce this problem. First are the ceiling baffles. Not only do they significantly reduce reverberation, but they create a design flourish up above. Second is a flat acoustic panel that has been integrated with a divider made from hollowed out carved panels, adding both visual and aural privacy to the area. Due to their pattern, one might assume the hollowed out carved panels are just ornamental, but in fact they significantly reduce the amount of spill-over noise, without the need for full, flat dividers.
Waved ceiling baffles
In the two meeting rooms above, there are ceiling baffles that have been cut and assembled in a wave formation, in grey and yellow. The undulating pattern gives a sense of movement to the ceilings, while the irregularity of their layout contrasts well with the formal office aesthetic.
Suspended ceiling panels in meeting rooms
The huge, dynamic meeting areas above are perfect for agile modes of working, allowing teams to move around and interact with one another easily, and for meetings to be held in a flexible space. With so many people in one room, though, the noise could easily become chaotic. By installing suspended ceiling panels, much of this noise is absorbed, allowing for meetings to be relaxed and maintain their privacy. Moreover, the panels feature a frame that gives a bit of texture and depth to the ceiling pattern.
Printed art on acoustic panels
To complement the suspended ceiling panels, here we can see flat printed acoustic panels that feature graphics of the famous Shanghai skyline. The ability to print art onto large, flat acoustic panels like this is a great way for them to seamlessly blend into, and even contribute to, the rest of the interior design.
Embossed wave panels
Modern offices often face the challenge of wanting to create places of work that are isolated to a degree, but still open and integrated. But traditionally-styled cubicles are proven to be bad for employee morale. Here, the solution is to create open-plan spaces with floor-to-ceiling walls on three sides, and to control the effect this has on reverberation, discreet embossed wave panels from Zenfeel have been added to the rear wall.
Groove cut and flat acoustic panels
In private meeting rooms like the ones pictured above, it’s very easy for voices to sound a little hollow, as the large flat surfaces of the walls, whiteboards and ceilings can cause significant reverberation. By adding large polyester acoustic panels here, that effect is minimized. The groove cut acoustic panels allow for simple designs to make the space seem more varied and interesting. They also help reduce the overall amount of noise spilling out from the rooms, giving everyone in and around them space to focus.
More ceiling baffles
If it isn’t already clear, this client loves ceiling baffles almost as much as we do. Here we can see they’ve been creatively laid out in a criss-cross pattern. Their dark tone acts like a feature wall in a room whose colour palette is otherwise bright orange, cream or white.
Are there more？
These are just a few of the favourite ways in which Zenfeel products were used in this massive office. If we showed you them all, this article would be more like a book. Hopefully they can inspire those looking to apply acoustic solutions to their offices, showing that they can be visually interesting, dynamic and adaptive. For more samples or to talk about how some of these products might be adapted for your purposes, please do reach out!