Assessment on acoustical performance of green office buildings in Malaysia

Abstract

Green building rating system outlines many requirements to be considered in order for a building to be certified as one. However, the rating tools failed at truly addressing the acoustical aspect which in turn deteriorates the acoustical quality in green buildings. As preliminary stage of this study, the objective is to assess the acoustical performance of three green office buildings in Malaysia in comparison to selected standard acceptability criteria. Four spaces containing meeting rooms and open-plan offices were selected from each green building as subjects. Assessments were limited to selected acoustical parameters of background noise level, noise criteria, reverberation time and speech transmission index. The background noise levels were found to be within acceptable criteria range despite some meeting rooms that exceeded the maximum recommended level. However, noise criteria ratings found most of the spaces to be below the acceptable noise criteria. Reverberation times data varied from satisfactory 0.7 s to unacceptable 1.5 s. Nonetheless, the background noise, noise criteria and reverberation time data collected were found to be unbiased by the volume of the space. Speech transmission indexes were found to be ample within good and fair speech intelligibility range while still maintaining its normal tendency of decreasing with distance.

Evaluation of Acoustical Performance for Atrium Design with Respect to Skylight Geometry and Material in the Tropics

“…One of the key elements deciding the reverberation period in acoustics is the volume, shape, and size of space (Long, 2014). The reverberation time in a large volume of spaces will be longer, resulting in poor speech intelligibility (Jalil et al, 2016). When a sound source is applied in a room, sound waves can propagate from the source of sound until they hit the room's boundary.…”

Evaluation of the thermal comfort in different commercial buildings in Guangzhou

“…In the study by Kaarlela-Tuomaala et al 15 and Abd Jalil et al, 16 open-plan offices were shown not suitable for professional workers because of the vulnerability to disturbance and unwanted noise, and for other types of workers to intervene accordingly. Several studies [17][18][19] indicated that improving indoor lighting and illumination conditions can improve users' visual comfort and reduce the annoyance ratio.…”