DE-CIX operates one of the world’s largest internet exchanges in Frankfurt, Germany and in such a place, a quiet working environment is essential for concentrated work. A large office space with a big staff and lots of machinery, however, often creates a challenging acoustic situation. In this blog post, we show you how we improved the room acoustics in the new DE-CIX premises.
The challenge
Poorly insulated rooms and reflective surfaces on walls and ceilings mean that phone calls, conversations and noisy appliances such as coffee machines and printers become acoustic sources of interference. All these problems prompted DE-CIX to contact us for a new acoustic concept.
The request described typical issues such as high volume levels and reverberant rooms – and therefore very wearisome communication. In addition, due to gaps in the glass elements and partition walls, there was a strong propagation of all noises through the corridors and the many individual rooms.
The solution
The specified objectives were the isolation of noise sources, reduced reverberation and improved intelligibility.
The first step was to create an acoustic concept for the entire floor and work it out in detail as a 3D model. Next, the reverberation time RT60 was calculated for each room in order to determine which and how much optimisation was required.
We achieved the reduction of the reverberation time by using effectively positioned wall and ceiling sails in various sizes and separated the individual rooms with ISO acoustic curtains.
Ultimately, all offices, meeting rooms and corridors were optimised with the HOFA acoustic modules and the acoustic makeover was a complete success. Perfect intelligibility makes for stress-free meetings, while sound absorption and insulation across the entire area ensures a working environment without acoustic disturbances.
Even the coffee machine, printer and conversations between colleagues in other offices are no longer distracting.
Products in use
HOFA Ceiling Sail
The ceiling sail consists of acoustically highly effective HOFA PureAkust® and counteracts unwanted reverberation in your room.
HOFA Wall Sail
The HOFA Wall Sail is an absorber which reduces interfering sound reflections on walls and minimizes the reverberation time.
HOFA Acoustic Curtain ISO
The acoustic curtain ISO offers perfect noise insulation and acoustic separation.
We plan your room
Just send us a sketch and some pictures of your room. Our acoustic experts provide you with an individual plan for the room’s acoustics. It will show you which measures will improve the acoustics of your room.
