Consideration on open plan office acoustics assessment – classification based on activity and occupants’ perception

Abstract

In recent years, new standards and guidelines regarding the acoustics in open plan offices have been published. These standards and guidelines often consider the room acoustics conditions, but do not go into much detail concerning the perception of the office occupants. In addition, changes in the work situation due to the pandemic and the post-pandemic return to the office create a new acoustic scenario for employees in open plan offices, e. g. an increased number of video calls, flexible working hours and daily changing occupancy. These facts also lead to more shared desk offices. As a result, a clear and expedient consideration of acoustics and its classification based on the activity performed, is important to reduce mental stress in open plan offices.Based on surveys and measurements in existing open plan offices and recent literature, the consideration of occupant perception for the reduction of mental stress is inevitable. However, the actions to improve the room acoustics and the overall situation need to consider the physical measurement data. This work presents an approach for capturing the auditory mental stress in open plan offices.