As more employees return to the workplace, employers are looking for ways to improve their offices to enhance productivity and overall wellness for their employees.
Biophilic design is a trend sweeping the architectural world– it incorporates natural elements into buildings to help create connections with nature and improve physical, mental, and emotional health.
Biophilic design is based on the idea that humans have a connection with nature and that bringing nature indoors in a workplace can help improve our health and happiness. Combined with other methods, such as sound masking, biophilic design can greatly impact your employees.
There are connections between architectural design and sound, which makes biophilic design even more necessary. Let’s look at how you can incorporate biophilic design and sound masking to create the perfect office environment.
Role of Sound in Biophilic Design
One primary challenge of office spaces is how sound travels and the volume of noise. These problems can affect employees by causing distractions and an inability to concentrate.
However, a completely silent environment won’t solve the problem. Between cultivating a natural environment and reducing distracting noises, you can help foster happier and more productive employees.
Sound Masking in the Workplace
Sound masking is a sound system that creates an ambient sound layer. When added to a workplace, this layer helps dampen voices and other noise, creating a better environment for employees to concentrate and work.
Sound masking has been shown to improve employee productivity and can help protect private conversations from spreading through the office.
Sound masking is different from white noise, however. While similar, white noise does not have the capability to adjust to varying sound levels in an office.
While the office is quieter, the white noise will continue to project at the same volume rather than adjust like sound masking, taking into consideration louder voices or a period of extra activity.
Biophilic Design & Sound Masking
By incorporating biophilic design and sound masking into your workplace, you can create a serene, calm, and more productive environment. Biophilic design can also help dampen or adsorb sound, reducing distractions. In addition, sound masking can help enhance sounds like water, birds, or other natural sounds, which are calming and beneficial to employees.
The synergy between these two concepts results in a better work environment. While some employees may thrive in fast-paced, loud environments, many do not. This is especially true for people who must use intense focus for their jobs, such as accountants, engineers, designers, writers, and other high-focus jobs. Incorporating sound masking can also help improve your company’s culture.
Incorporate Sound Masking in Your Office Renovations
Planning to renovate your office to maximize productivity? Consider incorporating sound masking and biophilic design. Sound masking has a high ROI, which you can see for yourself on Building Systems Solutions’ ROI calculator.
By choosing a company like Building Systems Solutions to incorporate sound masking, we will conduct extensive research on your current workplace environment to establish the correct sound levels needed.
We’ll use high-quality Soft dB products to produce sound masking sounds throughout your office.
If you plan on incorporating a biophilic design, it is best to complete that project before adding sound masking, as the new design will affect how sound is transmitted in the office. After your addition of biophilic design is complete, we can conduct the same testing and implement the sound masking equipment to complement the new atmosphere.
If you need more information about sound masking and how it can benefit your workplace, call Building Systems Solutions at 763-502-1515. You can also request a quote online.