When talking about acoustic treatment, most people picture grey foam wedges in a recording studio. They are functional, but to describe them frankly, ugly. They’re the kind of thing you’d only install if you don’t care about what a room looks like.
But that was then. Fast-forward, this reputation is increasingly out of date. All new solutions were designed to solve multiple problems in one go. Adding texture and visual interest is no longer impossible with the right acoustic treatment, and here are five spaces where it can be very much applicable.
Open Plan Living Areas
Acoustic problems are a given in an open plan layout. While it does favor the visuals by making the home feel spacious, there’s not much around to absorb the sound. High ceilings and large uninterrupted wall surfaces will only let the noise bounce until it fades. This means a corner conversation can easily be heard on the other side, and the television volume competes with the kitchen noise.
Installing decorative acoustic panel solutions in these spaces addresses the unwanted reverberation. This way, it insulates the sound while enchanting the room with a design element that harmonizes with the rest of the ensemble.
Home Offices and Study Spaces
With the hybrid office setup, it has become a requirement in some businesses to have home office acoustics. Video calls may produce echo that is very noticeable in a room with only hard walls and a desk. Office and study spaces at home could use the same decorative panels to solve these echo problems while keeping the room’s aesthetic in check. A well-chosen panel arrangement behind your desk easily becomes part of the professional backdrop.
Media and Entertainment Rooms
While it doesn’t seem like it, dedicated media rooms with a large television and gaming devices benefit greatly from acoustic treatment. Apart from that, it also solves the issue of muddy dialogue and a boomy listening experience from bass frequencies. Panels placed at key reflection points will bring out the real goodness of your audio equipment.
Restaurants and Café Fitouts
Commercial hospitality spaces face an acoustic challenge that directly affects customer experience. A busy café or restaurant with hard surfaces throughout becomes genuinely uncomfortable once it fills up, conversations at nearby tables become impossible to avoid, and the overall noise level can drive customers to leave sooner than they would otherwise.
Acoustic panels in these settings need to work as part of the overall design language of the space, since they’re visible to every customer who walks in. Custom printed panels, timber-look acoustic slats, or fabric-wrapped panels in the venue’s colour scheme let a business manage noise levels without compromising the atmosphere they’ve worked to create.
Bedrooms in Apartments and Townhouses
Acoustic panels may be good, but they aren’t 100% replacement for proper soundproofing pieces, especially in higher-density spaces. Those sharing walls with their neighbours or living near a busy road may have difficulty blocking the noise from outside and adjacent units. Even so, these panels can help greatly reduce internal echo and slightly absorb external noise.
A fabric panel behind a bed head softens the room acoustically. Those that are styled to look like an upholstered feature make a beautiful headboard upgrade. You know it works when you understand that it’s there to also bring life and color to your space, aside from serving as an acoustic treatment.