Improving podcast facilities in one of Facebook’s head offices.
Global giants, Facebook are known for their innovative approach to corporate culture and are said to be one of the pioneers of the ‘modern’ work concepts that brands are adopting today. From collaborative workspaces to employee advantages such as flexible hours and parent benefits, Facebook constantly paves the way for innovation.
In a unique concept of delivering messages to employees internally, Facebook approached Sound Zero to help fit out their podcast studio.
The problem
The room that Sound Zero’s work was due to take place in was originally used as a VR facility, as part of their $3bn investment of virtual-reality leader, Oculus, back in 2014.
Since the space was not set up as a recording area, no acoustic treatment had been applied to any of the external surfaces within the room. The main aim for Sound Zero was to improve reverberation by retrofitting acoustic treatment to a large wall surface.
Keeping things on-brand
The space would be used as a multi-functional facility; at times, being used as a video recording space. Due to this, an element of subtle branding needed to be incorporated within the design of the acoustic treatment.
Subtlety was the key here. Whilst being directly on brand with Facebook, the design needed to be impartial to other companies who also use their offices, such as WhatsApp and Instagram-all of whom are owned by Facebook.
The Solution
With the brief being:
‘deliver something that’s on-brand but neutral’
…Sound Zero decided to utilise their successful transitional wall solution as a way of achieving visual impact whilst improving speech intelligibility and reverberation.
Incorporating Sound Zero’s anechoic wedges, the open-cell acoustical panels are uniquely shaped to maximize the surface area exposed to acoustical energy.
To achieve the ‘transition’ that makes this product so unique, Sound Zero applied differing colours to the face of each individual wedge. In Facebook’s case, it was a blue and white checkerboard that transitioned into pure white (Facebook even have their own white RAL colour!).
The result? A truly captivating piece of acoustic art that appears to change colour as you move around the room.
Delivering A Winning Solution
Facebook, and the other brands associated, are now able to deliver internal messages throughout their workforce in an efficient manner through Sound-Zero’s unique transitional wall solution.
Now all that’s left is to see how long it takes for other companies to start applying the same communicational concepts to their team that Facebook have pioneered so well.
To find out more information on how we can develop your workspace to improve speech intelligibility and noise quality, get in touch with one of our experts today.
