Trouble at Lunch

Welcome to the first edition of "Hear Me Out" where I hope to use my experiences relating to acoustics – both in and out of work, to help anyone get the acoustics right in any space or project..

I'm incredibly lucky to be able to work on some really exciting projects across the UK - and occasionally beyond - for Rockfon with the aim of making buildings sound as good as possible for the occupants. That could mean improving learning experiences, health outcomes, working environments and social interactions.

I’ll start with the social part - specifically a recent conversation I had with my daughter over lunch. Whilst making the most of the Christmas holidays, we met up with Nana for a meal in Marlow. I won't name the restaurant but it was one of the middle - maybe upmarket - chains.

The venue was nicely decorated with wooden floors, pillars, beams in the vaulted ceiling, mirrors down most of the walls and a mix of banquette and wooden seating. It was also fairly busy with families, groups of friends and colleagues making the most of the lifting of some Covid restrictions.

Seated at a round table near the middle of the venue, the hustle and bustle of the place was great to see and for the first time in a long time there was plenty of noise to drown out my tinnitus. Things were good, until the waitress came to take our drinks order. Cue cupped ears, asking to clarify our orders and eventually the dreaded crouch down next to us to hear properly. The same happened for our food order.

By this time, most of the tables were now occupied and things were getting tricky. Time for Emily to throw in the question – “Why can I hardly hear a word you are saying Dad?”

Well said I, leaning in. ?All of these hard surfaces like the tables, mirrors and wooden floors reflect sound. The sound waves bounce around and end up coming at you from many different directions making conversation difficult. THEN, everyone sat around their tables has to talk louder and louder to get themselves heard (fyi this is called the Lombard Effect, a bit much for a 15 year old?) and the noise levels spiral up and up.

Nana can’t hear a thing, I’m annoyed, time to leave. This is a restaurant chain, why don’t they sort it out? More to the point, why didn’t they design-in proper?acoustics in the first place???Now, in most buildings there are acoustic ceilings, islands, baffles or wall panels installed, but in many restaurants these are taken out to save costs or for aesthetic reasons leaving a space that echoes and clatters with the sound of knives and forks,

A recent project that I worked on made this exact mistake, omitting the acoustic control in order to create the look they really wanted. This was all well and good until someone told the owner how noisy it was. It was then a race against time to retrospectively install baffles to absorb some of the sound before any food writers had the opportunity to include this in reviews. And if you don’t know how brutal the critics can be take a look at this from Grace Dent (not the project I worked on btw):

There are some alarming stats around restaurant noise - "72% of people have left a restaurant early due to noise1" - so when you’re designing your next dining experience make sure that we make it profitable for the owner and a great experience for the customer.

So, if I were advising the chain where I ate out with my family, I’d look at two possible options to reduce the reverberation, both of which would maintain the bright and airy feel of the vaulted ceiling whilst enhancing the acoustics.

Firstly, get it right first time. With the design of this space, consideration needs to be given to the fact there is a wonderful vaulted ceiling, a feature that needs to be maintained. There is also a reasonable amount of wall space down one and a half sides of the venue. A monolithic, seamless solution could be used on the vaulted ceiling thus keeping the spacious feel and high ceiling. To compliment this, acoustic wall panels could be used in place of traditional art.

Secondly, the retrofit possibility. Again, considering the room design it would most likely not look right to use baffles or islands suspended from the soffit. Instead Islands or tiles could be direct fixed to the existing gypsum ceiling and again acoustic artwork installed on the walls.

The problem with fitting acoustic solutions after the restaurant has opened is that installation costs generally increase as there is limited time between opening hours to enable to work to be done ensure the place is ready for the next service.

Does this experience sound familiar to you? Feel free to leave any comments - or ask any questions you would like covering in future editions - and if you’d like to, please subscribe to my newsletter.