COWI: A case study in utilizing Treble for improved office acoustics

In Norway, engineering consultancy firm COWI utilized Treble to great effect to investigate and shape the acoustical performance of an open plan office in their office in Stavanger.

Any architect worth their salt will know that open-plan offices pose a particular challenge when it comes to acoustics. Office acoustics should enable concentration and collaboration, yet large open spaces are prone to excessive reverberation and noise pollution.

For this reason, COWI sought to understand the low-frequency acoustical behavior in their proposed office space. The problem here was that existing methods of sound simulation were unable to provide accurate auralizations at important lower and medium frequencies, where significant wave phenomena occur.

With Treble, COWI was able to generate accurate renderings of the space for their client which clearly displayed the impact of different design options in a short time window.

The graph here shows the measured reverberation time of the office space compared with the simulated reverberation time using the Treble platform on the one hand and an industry-standard room acoustics simulation tool on the other hand. It’s clear how the Treble platform better captured the true reverberation characteristics of the room than the industry standard tool.