Balancing Aesthetics and Acoustics in Design

Julien (nonoise.club): At nonoise we explore how noise impacts our lives. Noise pollution is full of unwanted sounds. But it's interesting to think about how a sound can be designed to support wellbeing, productivity and emotional balance. That's why I'm excited today to speak with Pascal Van Dort . Pascal is an indoor acoustic expert working for a leading acoustic material supplier from Denmark, Rockfon Hello Pascal, nice to have you here as a guest.

Pascal Van Dort: Hello.

Julien (nonoise.club): Very nice to have you here Pascal. Let's start deep and say what's the biggest challenge to balance aesthetics when we speak about indoor design and acoustics.

Pascal Van Dort: Biggest challenge. It has a lot of challenges, but I think the biggest challenge when you talk about balancing aesthetics and acoustics is that you have effective acoustic solutions without that they are being noticed in the space. So it's not affecting the visual appeal of a space. I think that's the biggest distraction.

Julien (nonoise.club): Let's start directly by introducing yourself. I introduced you as an indoor acoustics expert. I don't know if it's completely fit everything you do, please, Pascal, who are you?

Pascal Van Dort: Well, on my business card actually it says global acoustics ambassador and that sounds really fancy but actually it says what it is being an ambassador to promote the increase of awareness for the importance of sound, noise and acoustics. And I started working for Rockfon 25 years ago in sales and because we produce acoustic solutions, we were getting a lot of questions about sound and acoustics. And with that, I got more intrigued by the world of sound noise and acoustics. So at some point I studied building acoustics post-academic. And with that, I got, let's say the visual, the actual knowledge about

Julien (nonoise.club): Mm-hmm.

Pascal Van Dort: sound, the physics, not the experience that I already had, but the physics about sound, noise and acoustics. And I learned a lot and with that I became an acoustics specialist. And that included also doing calculations, measurements when it comes to room acoustics and giving advice to different customers. It can be an architect who is working on a school or a restaurant owner who has problems with noise. And with that, I also noticed that it is important to increase this awareness. And with that, I became in 2019, I think it was, Global Acoustics Ambassador. And now my biggest part in my job is to help architects, interior designers, building owners, firstly to understand what is sound, noise and acoustics.

Julien (nonoise.club): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Pascal Van Dort: how it affects people's health, wellbeing, happiness, and with that also the designs that they have for spaces or buildings. And I do that via... presentations on different conferences, but also working on research, use that insight also to increase this awareness among people in, it's not officially, it is global as it says on my business card, but mostly it's Europe and Asia that I'm working on.

Julien (nonoise.club): And you are, I read about it, I think you're, as I am, a stronger European. You're really a European guy. You're Dutch, right? Working for Danish company? Yep.

Pascal Van Dort: Yes, I'm from the Netherlands. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm based in the Netherlands. My I get paid by the Dutch head office of of Rockfon in the Netherlands, but I work for the Danish head office. Officially, I belong to

Julien (nonoise.club): Mm-hmm. Okay, and I think you have some roots in Poland as well?

Pascal Van Dort: Well, yes, I'm married with someone from Poland and I got to know her because she was also working for Rockfon. So, yeah, that's true.

Julien (nonoise.club): Okay. Okay, so a strong European, I say that because I have Polish roots as well, with a Flemish name, not a Dutch one, but it's always nice to have European peers in these discussions. Let's deep dive not about our personal lives, but much more about sound acoustics. You studied construction acoustics and you mentioned there are different use cases out there when we speak about workplaces, hospitals, schools, hotels or restaurants. Are the challenges always the same?

Pascal Van Dort: no. Well, if you look overall as a helicopter view, I think the challenges are the same. But if you look at the different segments, the demands are very different because it very much depends if you're looking into room acoustics for a hospital or a open office. But you can also have an office space in a hospital. So with that, it's the same. But in general,

Julien (nonoise.club): Mm-hmm.

Pascal Van Dort: there are biggest differences in the use.

Julien (nonoise.club): the use.

Pascal Van Dort: in the use. You use a classroom differently than a ward room of a hospital or a meeting room in an office. And in all three, a balanced indoor acoustic environment is key.

Julien (nonoise.club): Mm-hmm. What do you mean by an experienced balanced acoustic environment? Because it's not everything about a silent environment. said it, the use maybe, we need to speak and we need to have some sound.

Pascal Van Dort: Yes. Well, for example, when you talk about hospitals, last week, actually, I had a scan for my stomach. So I went to the hospital and I am in the waiting room. Acoustics were good. No problem with that. It had a sound absorbing ceiling So with that not that much reverb But if you go to have a scan in the hospital, you need to have a full bladder So I was there with a full bladder and in the waiting room just in the corner There was a water dispenser. So every nurse that came to have cup and water Imagine everyone there with a full bladder like me. I'm like

Julien (nonoise.club): Mm-hmm.

Pascal Van Dort: So it's not only the acoustics that makes how a space sounds, it's also the use of the space. Putting a water dispenser in that specific space, put that sound source somewhere away from people with a full bladder. And when I mentioned this to the doctor, he said, we have no clue. So, know.

Julien (nonoise.club): Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Pascal Van Dort: That's why I mean with the balance. It's not only the room acoustic parameters, but also the psychoacoustics of space.

Julien (nonoise.club): So let's go into this. We speak about awareness, but first of all, you say even if sound doesn't reverb, let's explain technically what's noise, what's sound, and what's acoustic. So how does it work? To make it easy to understand for any listener, if not specialists, what do we need to care about? What's sound reverberation?

Pascal Van Dort: Yep. You know, sound is physics. It's an objective measure. You can measure the reverberation time, for example. Noise, you cannot measure. It's subjective. So it is in our mind how we experience a certain sound. And if it's unpleasant...

Julien (nonoise.club): Mm-hmm.

Pascal Van Dort: or unwanted, then mostly we call it noise. Also, a lot of people think that noise is a loud sound, but it doesn't have to be a loud sound to be noise.

Julien (nonoise.club): Mm-hmm. So we can't measure. We measure thorns around 80 decibels are harmful and it's, I guess, officially noise because it's unwanted loud. But how to measure... sound which is... let's take your example at hospital. I think you studied this before that I've seen a video from you explaining that the level of sound, the level of noise in an hospital should be... below 40 decibel in average, but it's in average above 50 decibel and even with maximum around 70 decibel. We say officially, the World Health Organization would say from 80 decibel it's harming, but at the same time they say it should be over 40 decibel in a hospital. So how to measure that and how to make people aware of all that? Because you said it, it's kind of very subjective.

Pascal Van Dort: Yes, and that's a very good question, how to measure something which is subjective. yeah, the World Health Organization says this amount of decibels above that, depending on how much time you spend with that surrounding is harmful. But if I'm in a hospital ward, I'm sick, and next to me there is equipment beep, beep, beep, beep all the time. It's not loud, it's way below 80 or 85 decibels, but it can increase my blood pressure, my heart rate, and it's also not healthy. So how to measure that? Yeah, well, you can put all kinds of things on my head and my body to measure all these things. But it's all about the subjective experience of the patients, but also staff.

Julien (nonoise.club): Mm-hmm. It sounds as different frequency. Are you able to create materials which are swallowing the different frequencies we speak about? You speak about this beep-beep from a machine, from any machine in an hospital, if you keep at that use case. You could say, okay, in such a room, very specific material will absorb that kind of frequency. Is it possible today to be such detailed?

Pascal Van Dort: Yeah, can nowadays if you want to absorb low frequencies, you can have a material or construction that only absorbs the low frequencies. The same goes for mid frequencies and high frequencies. but often sound absorbing materials, especially thin sound absorbing materials, so like carpet on the floor or a very thin layer of pet felt for example, that only absorbs sound in the higher frequencies. And with that, if you only apply that in a room, it can even make the room sound worse because you take only the high frequencies from that space.

Julien (nonoise.club): Mm-hmm. Why? And why worse? You could say, at least we remove high frequencies.

Pascal Van Dort: Well, for example, if you have like a meeting room where it's all about speech and you take away the high frequencies of speech, what is left is low and mid. So you create some kind of wooish sound around you. can be very annoying. So if you want to absorb...

Julien (nonoise.club): Mm-hmm.

Pascal Van Dort: speech you need also have solutions that absorb in the low and mid frequencies.

Julien (nonoise.club): And that's all about your work, being an interior acoustic designer, balancing these different materials to be able to identify what are the frequencies and absorb the right frequencies.

Pascal Van Dort: Yeah. Yes. Yeah, yeah. And often what happens like an open plan office, for example, if they have problems with the acoustics, if they already know it is the acoustics, because sometimes we get a call, yeah, we have problems with the sound insulation of the room. And when we come there, it's not about the sound insulation, but sound absorption. So you have to explain firstly, what's the difference. and often what they do is add sound absorbing materials. But too much sound absorbing materials can also even make it worse. So that's why the balance, especially in open plan offices between speech privacy and speech intelligibility, it's very tricky. It's not that easy.

Julien (nonoise.club): Reworking the construction of a meeting room, for instance, is something you can't really do in advance. Or can you simulate what would be the noise of a specific room? I don't know, maybe with different sizes, with volumes on plan. Can you plan in advance what should be the perfect material to optimize the sound balance of a meeting room, of a school, of a restaurant?

Pascal Van Dort: Yes, yeah, yes, yes you can. And unfortunately, that doesn't happen always. I always say, a space shapes sound and sound shapes our experience of space. So meaning it already starts with the shape of the room. If you have a room with.

Julien (nonoise.club): Mm-hmm.

Pascal Van Dort: two walls on opposite of each other, it will bounce forth and back. If you put one of the holes a little bit in an angle, you have a different sound reflection in the room, which is already affecting the interacoustic environment just by changing the shape of the room. So that is just clear thinking, but you can calculate nowadays, simulate.

Julien (nonoise.club): Mm-hmm.

Pascal Van Dort: with oralizations even already very well how a space will sound if you have this environment with these solutions or and so on. Yeah.

Julien (nonoise.club): Architects are the trend for doing that. Because speaking to different architects, I'm not really sure. Maybe they are your customers and it's hard to... You can't be too negative, maybe pick your words. I don't care. But do you think architects are a well-trained to do so?

Pascal Van Dort: No. Actually, last week I was in Poland talking on a conference with architects. And when I was talking to some of them, they said, Pascal, know, it's cool during our education, we hardly get any knowledge about the indoor acoustic environment. You know, it is also about

Julien (nonoise.club): You Mm-hmm.

Pascal Van Dort: air, it's about light, daylight, artificial light, and acoustics, yeah, okay, a little bit, but not as much as they should know. You know, if I tell them this thing with the, don't put the walls like that, but like that, they said, yeah, it's such a simple thinking, but yeah, we didn't have this at school at all. So,

Julien (nonoise.club): And why?

Pascal Van Dort: Yeah, that's a good question. That's also what I asked them. said, because if you do research on the indoor quality of a room, when you look at temperature and daylight and so on, noise is often number one or number two. So it's one of the most important features, but does it get the most attention in schools where they teach architects on interior design, how to design a building or a space? No.

Julien (nonoise.club): meaning we need more acoustic ambassadors as you are to create awareness around that. More no noise as well to create awareness about noise. But the way is still very long I hear.

Pascal Van Dort: Is it wealth? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I think this podcast is is well, where was it? Because you know, there you cannot have too much attention on the importance of noise and what it does with us as human beings.

Julien (nonoise.club): If I am a restaurant owner or the director of a school or a facility manager, what can I do to measure the acoustics of my room? Is there accessible solutions? Not asking for specialists, not asking for an acoustician to come or directly... taking my phone, how can I test it very easily? For anyone next to this podcast, anyone should be able to test it. What is possible to do today?

Pascal Van Dort: Yeah, there are different possibilities. Well, a good example, at the moment I'm studying environmental psychology. It's a master class via the University of Amsterdam. And with my fellow students, we had an assignment to investigate how the environment affects the way we... hear a space. So how do we experience a space when looking at the sound quality? And our assignment was to do that in a coffee shop like Starbucks or the coffee company, spaces like that. And I also helped my fellow students with the different apps on your smart device where you can measure the sound levels.

Julien (nonoise.club): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Pascal Van Dort: You know, it's not a class one measurement equipment, but it gives a good indication if it's 60 decibels or 90 decibels. And when they were doing these measurements with their smart devices, actually they were surprised like, yeah, know what, Pascal, it was close to 90 decibels. And now I know that's actually quite loud. I'm like, yes, exactly. It increases the awareness on...

Julien (nonoise.club): Mm-hmm.

Pascal Van Dort: the amount of decibels, but if you don't have any knowledge, if 90 decibels is a lot, yes or no, you also need to know where to place those decibel levels. And 90 decibels, well, if it's just for one minute, okay, but if it's for two hours, you really have a problem, you know, then it will affect your health.

Julien (nonoise.club): Mm-hmm.

Pascal Van Dort: So you can measure decibel levels. You could also measure reverberation time. There are some apps where you on your smart device can, with clapping your hand, measure the reverberation time. But then still, know the reverberation time. That's nice to know, but still you don't have any solutions implemented yet.

Julien (nonoise.club): Okay.

Pascal Van Dort: So I know why you ask this, but I think it's important that with increasing the awareness, people also should know why they are using these apps. And what's the next step? Yeah.

Julien (nonoise.club): Totally, but I think creating awareness always starts with, know, coming from the digital world, creating awareness mostly starts from a free solution, very accessible, at least to create some first touch points before deep diving and being able to put some budget, to put some time, to invest a bit more into the right solution. It may be counterproductive if the solution is... is not good enough because you, for instance, you don't measure a noise. I use some such apps sometimes and it just says, okay, everything is fine, it's 40 decibels. It's still very, very noisy. And with other apps, they're telling you that's 50 or 60 decibels. You say, okay, why such a difference in two different apps? So we need to be careful. What do we use for that? Still, I think we need very accessible touch points. and that's why I mentioned that kind of apps. But I hear that we still don't have the grail of the perfect app to measure that and we still need a lot of professionals to do.

Pascal Van Dort: No, no, you know, especially when you talk about restaurant noise, the app that I use often is the Soundprint app. Why? Because also you can select the venue where you are at that moment and even you can send a notification to the owner of the restaurant via the Soundprint app.

Julien (nonoise.club): Mm-hmm.

Pascal Van Dort: Not sure how it works in practice though, but you know, if the restaurant owner will get an email like, hey, someone used the Soundprint app and it measured a very high noise level, then it should trigger this restaurant owner like, okay, my restaurant is noisy. And then also with that, you can increase the awareness.

Julien (nonoise.club): You speak about my restaurant is noisy. A lot of people say, know, noisy places are places where life goes with sound and noise. If it's too silent, it's kind of a dead place. Do you have in your education or in your journey at work phone, do you have that kind of discussion around the perception and the behavior, the perception of a place?

Pascal Van Dort: Yeah.

Julien (nonoise.club): A noisy place is a colorful place, kind of.

Pascal Van Dort: You know, there's a lot of research on restaurant noise and what I often use is research shows that the over 50 fives, so that's a very important target group for restaurants, if the restaurant is too loud, they stay at that very moment in the restaurant, finish their meal. but they're not coming back anymore. And of course, as a restaurant owner, you want your customers to come back. And what do they ask you at the end of the dinner? Like, well, how was it? Did you enjoy your meal? Yes, we enjoyed our meal. But that's actually the wrong question. They should ask, like, how did you experience it in our restaurant? Then they would most likely say the food was very nice, but man, what a noise here.

Julien (nonoise.club): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I will try to crop data around noise and sounds and maybe TripAdvisor or that kind of feedback platform. That will be interesting to know.

Pascal Van Dort: And. Yeah, exactly. And there are more more reviews on that for restaurants in different countries also. But you know, it's coming back on too quiet. It also should not be too quiet. No, that's true. You need some kind of buzz around you, which gives you the feeling it's a nice, lively atmosphere. But it should not annoy you because then you cross the line. But again, to get to line, it's very difficult. It's not that easy.

Julien (nonoise.club): Mm-hmm. Isn't that easy? Did you in your journey discover any solution where you thought, wow, that's great and we need more solutions like this? I mean, you may mention your own solutions as Rockform, materials supplier, but more generally, did you notice great solutions, great technologies in the past? You would recommend to anyone to... to study a bit more, to deep dive.

Pascal Van Dort: You know, if you Google acoustic solutions, you get a wild jungle of all kinds of acoustic solution. even, you know, this coffee cup, it is acoustics. Yes, it reflects sound. It doesn't absorb sound, but it's acoustics. Acoustics is not defined as such. So... Are there acoustic solutions that do their job as they are supposed to do? Yes. Luckily, there is enough, I would say. Sound absorption, sound diffusion, sound reflection you need, depending on the space, you need a combination of all. can be biophilic design, can be sound absorbing materials like we have, but it all depends on the use of the space.

Julien (nonoise.club): So the question of the, you speak about combination.

Pascal Van Dort: and and to and to yes exactly and to get back to like how we use a space actually we are part of a european funded research where we look into is it possible that we don't as human beings adapt to the space but the space adapts to us so if you have an open office and people somewhere in

Julien (nonoise.club): Mm-hmm.

Pascal Van Dort: a corner, they are collaborating with each other with that sound level increases with sensors in the room, the room senses like, people are collaborating. So what happens is that you have robotic partitions moving into that direction to block the sound. Even the ceiling islands, acoustic ceiling islands, they can come down also to make sure that the sound is blocked somehow or absorbed more.

Julien (nonoise.club): Mm-hmm.

Pascal Van Dort: So we are working with different universities and industrial partners on that research to see how does that affect our health and our well-being. So I'm not sure if that's the future, you know.

Julien (nonoise.club): Mm-hmm. meaning adaptive material, but adaptive material and adaptive constructions to adapt to the different use cases. That's what you do describe.

Pascal Van Dort: Yes, yes. And not only when it comes to acoustics, but also with light. You know, if you are focusing on a task, you need a different setup of light when you are collaborating with people and the same for acoustics. So we just started this journey on this European research. called Sonata. Still three years to go, but already the first results are very impressive, I will say.

Julien (nonoise.club): And same focusing. Please send me a link to Sonata and I will put it in the comment or in the description of the podcast episode. That would be great to share with the audience. Let's have a last topic in our discussion because that's something I want to mention more and more is sustainability. When I speak about noise pollution, I speak about a sustainability topic, which is not included in the SDG pillars.

Pascal Van Dort: yes. Yep. Yeah.

Julien (nonoise.club): read the report of Rockwool, Rockfon around SDG and even in your own company working at Rockfon against noise and for bad acoustics, you don't mention noise as a sustainable topic. why do you think air pollution is for sure directly one of the first we think about when you speak about sustainability? Why is it noise pollution and acoustics are something very important. We reduce the energy consumption, we use better materials, circular materials, we reduce the gas emissions, but we don't need to reduce the noise emissions. Why that? What do you think?

Pascal Van Dort: Yeah, it's a fair question. Rockwool is our mother company and they are a manufacturer of Stonewall solutions. So they very much focus on sustainability of the products, but also more and more what it does to the environment. And I think it's SDG4.

Julien (nonoise.club): Mm-hmm.

Pascal Van Dort: which talks about how it can improve wellbeing. So that is of course one of the SDGs, which is very much linked to the indoor acoustic environment with the solutions that we have.

Julien (nonoise.club): Mm-hmm. But do you think there is enough place for noise in SDG Pillars? Because you say it's indirect. That's well-being. a previous episode, I spoke with Damien Demour from Greenov. We spoke about ocean noise pollution. You've seen that interview. That's really interesting. mean, we are completely into sustainability topic when you speak about that. When I spoke about di-

Pascal Van Dort: It, it, it, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Julien (nonoise.club): biodiversity with a company called Synature Olivier Stähli We speak completely about sustainability topics and we speak about noise. So I ask myself why don't we put more place for noise pollution into all this?

Pascal Van Dort: Yeah, maybe we need to still increase the awareness a little bit more and do more lobbying. Maybe that will help. But it's true that it should be a little bit higher on the agenda of the entire SDGs that there are. Because I often quote Robert Koch. Nobel Prize winner for cure on tuberculosis. But in 1905, he said that, you know what, forget about cholera, forget about the plague in the future noise will be plague number one. And he was almost right because according to the World Health Organization, it's a number two. Number one is air pollution. So should the SDGs focus more on this air pollution and noise pollution because they are number one and two? Maybe yes, I think it's a fair question.

Julien (nonoise.club): Mm-hmm. think we'll keep it as a perfect conclusion because we need more ambassadors as you, Pascal, and we need maybe more nonoise podcasts like Fighting Noise to create a world around that. We need to better educate our architects, that's what I hear as well, and I think to better educate citizens more in general that noise is a...

Pascal Van Dort: Yeah.

Julien (nonoise.club): is in a dramatic situation because we create more more engines, we create more and more machines, so we do produce more and more noise and we need to reduce that and be aware of that. Pascal Van Dort thanks a lot for your time today. Pascal, what can a listener do for you today listening to that podcast saying, okay, that's a great guy, I want to help him. What can our audience do for you?

Pascal Van Dort: Listen to a space that they are in and let's have them realize how much it will affect their health and well-being because mostly they don't do that. They are looking at a space visually orientated. So not only look with your eyes, but also listen with your ears.

Julien (nonoise.club): Mm-hmm. Listen, that's great. I ordered the word listen to stick it on my wall a few days ago, so I completely agree on that. I think listening is great to be aware about sound and noise pollution, but listening in a conversation is as well very important to understand.

Pascal Van Dort: Yeah.

Julien (nonoise.club): problems to understand the issue and to better communicate to each other. So I think it's a very great word I sign on this. What can you do for our audience? What can you do on your side for people listening to you?

Pascal Van Dort: I can help them in what to do and what not to do. And it very much depends on the segment, know, it's office, education, healthcare, what kind of space. But with the experience that I have, my colleagues have, but also the knowledge, we can help them guiding towards the right direction.

Julien (nonoise.club): Mm-hmm.

Pascal Van Dort: where they should look into because sometimes I get, know, Pascal, we have problems with acoustics and I come there and I'm like, yeah, well, actually the acoustics when I would measure them, they would be according to a standard. So completely complies to this standard, but it doesn't say that you will have optimized in your acoustic environment because we have people in that space. And that's the biggest challenge with acoustics, the people.

Julien (nonoise.club): Mm-hmm.

Pascal Van Dort: So of course we can help them with advice. And when it comes to that, in the end, of course also acoustic solutions because that's our main focus as a European market leader. So yes, but the people.

Julien (nonoise.club): The best way to get in touch with you is LinkedIn or the best way to get in touch with you to contact you.

Pascal Van Dort: Sorry. Yeah, just email. I'm sure you will have my email somewhere. Yes, and they can always reach out. problem. Yeah, yeah. Or send me a message via LinkedIn. Also, that is possible. No problem.

Julien (nonoise.club): I can? Okay. I put it in the description of the episode. Perfect. I mentioned that episode if you want to be sure that Pascal answers you. Thanks a lot Pascal Van Dort, you're indoor acoustic expert, your global acoustic ambassador for Rockfon from the Rockwool Group in Denmark, you in the Netherlands. Thanks a lot for your time today, I hope you enjoyed that episode. If so, please share that episode with your community, please give us five stars on your favorite platform and comment. our LinkedIn posts, we need to create some community, need to create some awareness and it won't work without you. So please guys, listen to that. Please everyone listen to that, share it, like it and we do the job. Thanks everyone. Thanks Pascal and see you soon.