The Challenge:
Transitioning 135 busy professionals from a 20,000 square foot space into an 11,000 square foot space while creating a more collaborative, productive work environment was the challenge interior designer Kalyn Rothaus faced as host of Office Spaces, a reality series airing on Lifetime® Television.
Tasked with moving BrandStar, the educational programming unit for Lifetime, into a new, though considerably cozier headquarters, Rothaus wanted to empower the BrandStar team with a collaborative workspace that also supported focused work.
“One of my biggest challenges was designing a bullpen area for about 54 employees that still supports focused work,” says Rothaus. Creating a space with proper acoustics was a top priority.
The Solution:
After researching which ceilings would provide the best sound absorption (NRC) and best sound blocking (CAC), Rothaus decided on Armstrong® ceiling panels with TOTAL ACOUSTICS performance.
Working with Armstrong to identify a look, a performance expectation, and a budget that would satisfy the building owner, Rothaus specified CALLA ceiling panels with TOTAL ACOUSTICS performance. “I knew it would be ideal for private offices where sound blocking and speech privacy is important, as well as in the open office spaces where noise reduction is crucial.”
To break up the look of the wall to wall ceiling, Rothaus specified Armstrong FORMATIONS acoustical clouds with CALLA ceiling panels in the color Stone and coordinating AXIOM trim. The clouds provided the desired decorative visual and added another layer of sound absorption. She also included a sound masking system to further suppress unwanted sound.
According to the results of an independent acoustical consultant, the acoustical performance of the space was confirmed a huge success for Rothaus. Private offices achieved a reverberation time of 0.4 seconds and Privacy Index of 100 percent, ensuring optimized speech intelligibility within the space and confidential speech privacy between adjacent spaces. In the much larger open plan office area, the reverberation time remained 0.4 seconds. Normal speech privacy was achieved with the Privacy Index between adjacent workstations measuring from 80-to-94 percent.