Open Plan Office Acoustics: A Practical Guide | Sound Zero

Quick answers: best acoustic panels for offices

Use this as a fast product-selection guide before the full office acoustics advice.

What are the best acoustic panels for offices?

The best office acoustic panels are usually a mix of ceiling absorption and wall treatment. PET ceiling baffles work well where wall space is limited. Wall Panel Pro, Moss Wall and wood wool panels are useful when the treatment also needs to look designed.

Are ceiling baffles or wall panels better for offices?

Ceiling baffles usually give the most coverage in open-plan offices because the ceiling plane is large and unobstructed. Wall panels are better for meeting rooms, breakout spaces and focal areas. Many office schemes need both to control reverberation and improve speech comfort.

Do offices need soundproofing as well as panels?

Open-plan areas usually need acoustic treatment, not soundproofing. Meeting rooms, phone rooms and boardrooms may need soundproofing if speech privacy is the problem. The acoustic treatment vs soundproofing guide explains the difference.

Plan an office acoustic project

Open plan office acoustics decide whether a workspace helps people think or stops them thinking. Without targeted treatment, sound carries across the floor, conversations bleed between zones, and the room ends up working against the teams inside it.

This guide explains why open plan offices get so loud, the measurable cost of leaving them untreated, and the proven treatments that fix the problem. It is written for facilities managers, architects, interior designers and operations leaders who need a workspace that performs.

Why open plan offices are so noisy

Three forces combine in every untreated open plan office and make noise unavoidable. Treating the symptoms without naming the causes is the most common reason acoustic projects underperform.

Hard, reflective surfaces. Modern fit-outs favour exposed concrete soffits, glass partitions, polished concrete or vinyl flooring, and metal feature walls. These finishes look sharp. They also reflect sound rather than absorb it, so reverberation builds, speech intelligibility drops, and the room amplifies its own noise.

No barriers between people. Without partitions, voices travel the full length of the floor plate. A single phone call seven desks away pulls attention from everyone in earshot. Distraction comes from intelligible speech, not raw volume, which is why a noisy canteen is easier to focus in than a quiet office where one person is on a call.

The Lombard reflex. When the ambient noise floor rises, people unconsciously raise their voices to be heard. Their colleagues then raise theirs. Within minutes the whole office is louder than it needs to be, and the room is fighting itself.

Background services add the final layer: HVAC plant, printers, breakout-area chatter, and ringtones from desk phones and softphones. Each individual source is small. Together they push the average open plan office well past the level at which focused work is realistic.

The real cost of poor open plan office acoustics

Untreated open plan office acoustics are not a quality-of-life issue. They are a productivity, retention and wellbeing issue with a measurable cost on the bottom line.

Typical untreated open plan offices sit at 65 to 70 dB(A) during a working day. The level at which knowledge workers can concentrate without strain is closer to 50 to 55 dB(A). The gap of 10 to 15 dB sounds modest until you remember that every 10 dB increase is perceived as a doubling of loudness. The difference between a treated and an untreated open plan office is the difference between a library and a busy café.

Repeated industry research finds that open plan office workers lose between 28 minutes and 86 minutes of productive time per day to acoustic distraction, depending on the role. Engineering, finance, legal and creative work suffer most because the cognitive cost of being pulled off-task is highest in deep work. Recovery time after a single distraction is typically 15 to 25 minutes.

Beyond productivity, poor acoustics drive higher reported stress, lower job satisfaction, and elevated absenteeism. In hybrid working environments, they are also one of the most cited reasons employees prefer working from home. A workspace people avoid is a workspace earning nothing back on its rent.

Distraction in an open plan office comes from intelligible speech, not raw volume. Reduce intelligibility and you reduce the cost of every overheard call.

ISO 22955 and the four-space framework

The international standard for open plan office acoustics is ISO 22955:2021 Acoustic quality of open office spaces. It is the most useful single reference for anyone specifying or assessing an open plan office, and the framework most UK acoustic consultants now work from.

ISO 22955 sets out five activity-based space types and defines target acoustic conditions for each. It moves the conversation away from chasing a single dB number and towards designing for what the space is actually for.

• Space 1, internal communication focus. Teams that talk to each other most of the day. Lower absorption need, higher tolerance for chatter.
• Space 2, external communication focus. Call centres, client-facing roles. High absorption to protect intelligibility on calls.
• Space 3, concentration focus. Engineering, analysis, legal, deep creative. The acoustic environment must protect focus. Highest absorption and the strongest case for screens, pods, or quiet rooms.
• Space 4, mixed activities. A blend of all three. The most common UK office setup and the hardest to treat without acoustic zoning.
• Space 5, receiving the public. Reception, hospitality-style settings. Speech intelligibility under variable footfall is the design driver.

Naming the space type before specifying treatment prevents the most common acoustic mistake in modern offices: over-absorbing collaboration areas and under-treating focus zones. Both leave teams unhappy, and both waste budget.

Acoustic zoning strategies

Acoustic zoning is the practice of dividing an open plan office into areas designed for distinct activities, then matching the acoustic treatment to each one. It is the single highest-impact intervention available, and it costs nothing if it happens at the planning stage.

Focus zones

Focus zones are reserved for concentrated, individual work. They sit away from circulation routes, kitchens, and breakout space. Treatment is dense: high-absorption ceiling baffles or grid, acoustic screens between desks, and ideally a sound-masking system to lift the noise floor evenly so any remaining speech becomes unintelligible. Reverberation time in a focus zone should sit comfortably under 0.5 seconds.

Collaboration zones

Collaboration zones host short meetings, stand-ups, project work and informal conversations. The treatment goal is twofold: keep speech intelligible inside the zone, and prevent it leaking into adjacent focus space. Acoustic screens, suspended baffles overhead, and absorptive wall panels deliver both. Position these zones with at least one solid wall and a buffer of soft furniture or planting between them and focus areas.

Social zones

Kitchens, breakout areas and lounge zones are the loudest spaces on the floor by design. Locate them as far from focus zones as the floor plate allows, and over-treat them. Highly absorptive ceiling treatment, fabric-wrapped wall panels, soft seating and rugs all work together to keep reverberation low and stop the social space spilling its noise into the rest of the office.

Quiet zones

Quiet zones are the safety valve. They give people somewhere to retreat when the floor is busy, and they signal that the business takes focus seriously. Use enclosed booths or pods, treat the inside heavily, and isolate them from the floor with acoustic doors and proper wall buildups. A small number of well-built quiet zones changes how the whole office feels.

For a broader view of how zoning connects to whole-floor strategy, our office acoustics service walks through the brief, survey, design and install process from the first site visit onward.

Types of acoustic treatments for offices

No single product fixes open plan office acoustics on its own. The right answer is a layered specification across the ceiling, walls, screens and furniture, sized to the room and to the activities inside it.

Acoustic wall panels

Wall panels absorb sound before it reflects back into the room. The acoustic core does the work, so material matters more than appearance. PET felt, mineral wool wrapped in fabric, and high-density acoustic foam all perform well. PET in particular is durable, low-VOC, and made from recycled plastic, which is why it suits commercial open plan offices.

Panels can be printed, shaped, or used as feature walls. See our guide to what acoustic panels are and why we use them for the technical detail behind the choices.

Ceiling baffles and rafts

The ceiling is the largest unbroken surface in almost every open plan office and the single most cost-effective surface to treat. Suspended baffles hang vertically and absorb sound from multiple angles, which makes them well suited to exposed-service ceilings and rooms with high reverberation. Rafts and acoustic clouds work in a similar way and integrate with lighting and HVAC.

Explore the acoustic ceiling treatment range for product-level options and finishes.

Acoustic screens and desk dividers

Screens block the direct sound path between people sitting close together and absorb energy as it passes. A screen of sufficient height (typically 1.5 to 1.7 metres) breaks line-of-sight between adjacent desks, which delivers most of the acoustic benefit. Freestanding screens flex with the floor plan; fixed screens give a tidier finish.

Acoustic pods and booths

Pods deliver hard acoustic separation inside an open plan footprint. Single-occupancy booths handle calls and focus work; meeting pods handle four-to-six person sessions without booking a room. Treated correctly, a pod gives a measurable drop in noise both for the user inside and for the floor outside.

Browse acoustic furniture for booth, pod and high-back options.

Flooring and soft furnishings

Carpet or carpet tile reduces impact noise from footfall and chair movement, and absorbs a small amount of airborne sound. Curtains, rugs, soft seating and planting are not substitutes for proper acoustic treatment, but in combination they soften the overall sound of the room and lift the perceived comfort of the space.

Sound masking

Sound masking adds a low, continuous, broadband sound through ceiling-mounted emitters. Tuned correctly, it lifts the noise floor by a few dB and renders incidental speech unintelligible without making the office feel louder. It is most useful in concentration-focus zones (ISO 22955 Space 3) and is best installed alongside, not instead of, absorptive treatment.

How to measure open plan office acoustics

Specifying treatment without measurement is guesswork. Three numbers cover most office briefs, and any decent acoustic survey will report all three.

• L_Aeq (ambient noise level). A time-averaged measurement of overall sound level, typically captured across a working day. Open plan focus zones should target 50 to 55 dB(A). Collaboration zones can run higher.
• T₆₀ (reverberation time). The time it takes sound to decay by 60 dB. In a treated open plan office, T₆₀ sits at 0.4 to 0.6 seconds. Untreated, it often exceeds 1.0 second.
• D_2,S (spatial decay of speech). A measure of how quickly speech becomes inaudible as you move away from the talker. ISO 22955 sets target ranges by space type and is the single best metric for an open plan office.

A site survey captures all three across a representative sample of zones and benchmarks them against ISO 22955 and BS 8233:2014 indoor ambient noise guidance. The output is a heat map of where the office is performing and where it is not.

Improving office acoustics on a budget

Not every business has the brief or the budget for a full acoustic overhaul. A handful of moves cost very little and still meaningfully shift the room.

Relocate the loud equipment. Printers, coffee machines, kitchenettes and meeting points all generate noise that bleeds into focus areas. Move them to dedicated walls or pockets and the floor calms down for free.

Add soft material aggressively. Rugs under collaboration tables, fabric-front lockers along hard walls, planting in clusters, and upholstered seating in breakout areas all add absorption without a fit-out. None of it replaces a properly specified system, but it shifts the baseline.

Set quiet etiquette and stick to it. Headphones-on means do not disturb. Long calls move into pods or meeting rooms. Status indicators (a simple traffic light app on a monitor) cut interruption rates without any hardware spend.

Treat the worst zone first. One small, well-treated focus area is more valuable than a dozen wall panels scattered across the floor. Identify the loudest cluster, the most disrupted team, or the room people avoid, and target that.

One small, well-treated focus zone is worth more than a dozen wall panels scattered across the floor. Treat the worst space first.

Cost considerations

The cost of treating open plan office acoustics varies with the size of the floor, the severity of the problem, and the level of design ambition. A few benchmarks frame the decision.

A targeted intervention in a single zone, including ceiling baffles, screens and a small number of wall panels, typically starts in the low five figures. A whole-floor scheme covering ceiling, walls, screens and one or two pods sits between the mid five figures and the low six figures for a typical London office. Bespoke design-led schemes with printed panels, biophilic integration and custom joinery sit higher again.

The return is straightforward to model. Take the fully loaded cost of the team using the space, multiply it by the share of time lost to acoustic distraction (industry research puts this at 5 to 15 percent for knowledge work), and compare the recovered productivity against the project cost. For a 50-person team at average London office salaries, even a conservative 5 percent recovery pays back a £30,000 acoustic project inside the first year.

For a longer view, our companion piece on acoustic treatment versus soundproofing explains where each approach fits and how the spend is best allocated.

How Sound Zero helps

Sound Zero is a London-based, design-led acoustic specialist. We design and deliver open plan office acoustic schemes end-to-end, from the first survey through to final commissioning.

Every project starts with a measured site survey. We capture L_Aeq, T₆₀ and D_2,S across the representative zones, map the result against ISO 22955 and BS 8233:2014, and present the findings as a clear brief rather than a wall of numbers. The treatment design follows from the survey, not from a product catalogue.

We specify and supply our own PET acoustic range alongside best-in-class third-party products where they suit the brief. Installation is handled by our in-house teams. Every scheme leaves with a measured handover so the client can see exactly what the treatment has delivered.

Our client roster includes Sonos, Universal Music, Facebook, and a broad range of commercial offices, broadcasters, and creative studios across London and the UK. When you are ready to talk, contact us for a free site visit.

Frequently asked questions

What is the ideal noise level for an open plan office?

For focus and concentration work, target an ambient level of 50 to 55 dB(A). Collaboration zones can run higher at 55 to 60 dB(A). Untreated open plan offices typically sit at 65 to 70 dB(A), which is well above the threshold at which most people can concentrate without strain. ISO 22955 gives target ranges by activity type, which is the most useful benchmark for a real fit-out.

What is the ISO 22955 standard?

ISO 22955:2021 is the international standard covering acoustic quality of open office spaces. It defines five activity-based space types and sets target ranges for reverberation, spatial decay of speech, and ambient noise level for each. It has replaced the older NF S 31-199 French standard as the international reference for open plan office acoustics.

Do acoustic ceiling baffles actually work?

Yes. The ceiling is the largest single surface in most open plan offices and the most cost-effective area to treat. Suspended baffles absorb sound from multiple directions, which makes them particularly effective in rooms with exposed services or hard reflective soffits. A well-specified baffle scheme typically reduces reverberation time by 30 to 50 percent.

How long does an office acoustic project take?

A focused single-zone intervention can complete in two to four weeks from survey to handover. A whole-floor scheme typically runs six to twelve weeks depending on lead times for screens, baffles and any pod or booth elements. Installation is generally phased to keep the floor in use rather than closing the office down.

What is acoustic zoning?

Acoustic zoning is the practice of dividing an open plan office into areas based on the activity inside them, then matching the acoustic treatment to each area. Focus, collaboration, social and quiet zones each have different acoustic targets. Treating them as one undifferentiated space is the most common reason acoustic projects underperform.

Are acoustic panels environmentally friendly?

Many are. Sound Zero’s PET acoustic range is made from recycled plastic bottles, is fully recyclable at end of life, and carries low-VOC accreditation. Mineral wool products carry strong environmental credentials when specified with formaldehyde-free binders and recyclable facings. Specify-stage attention to materials avoids retrofitting sustainability into a finished scheme.

How much does it cost to treat an open plan office?

Single-zone interventions typically start in the low five figures. A whole-floor scheme for a typical London open plan office runs between the mid five figures and the low six figures depending on scale, finishes, and the inclusion of pods. The decision is best framed against recovered productivity rather than headline cost: even a modest 5 percent productivity gain across a 50-person team pays back a £30,000 project inside the first year.

Related acoustic guidance: office acoustics service | office noise reduction guide | office acoustics cost guide

Standards and trusted references

Open-plan office acoustics are best judged against recognised workplace and room-acoustic guidance rather than panel count alone.

• ISO 22955: Acoustic quality of open office spaces – international guidance focused on open-plan office acoustic quality
• BS EN ISO 3382-3 – room-acoustic measurement method for open-plan offices
• HSE: Noise at work – official UK workplace noise guidance and resources
• HSE: Noise advice for employers – risk-control duties and practical employer guidance

Office acoustics hub

Use this office acoustics hub to move from the guide into the service page, cost planning, workplace case studies, product options and consultation.

Services and planning

• Office acoustics service – survey, concept and installation support
• Office acoustics cost guide – budget and ROI context
• Office noise reduction – facilities-manager guide

Case studies

• Taboola office acoustic treatment – open-plan workplace treatment
• London law firm speech privacy – privacy-led acoustic treatment
• Cocolighting – commercial acoustic solution

Products and guides

• Acoustic panels guide – when panels help
• PET ceiling baffles – overhead absorption
• Moss wall – biophilic acoustic finish
• Wood wool panels – robust wall and ceiling treatment

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