We have visited a number of modern office buildings, businesses, schools and labs over the past few years. Most have many options for seating. These options ranged from tall stools and chairs to sitting on pillows. All of these are pretty sweet choices for people to make.
About two years ago we visited a design firm that offered one last layer to this modern work space feel, sound. Think of any open work space, like a classroom, and you have a ton of noise. Even if no one is talking, the classroom still produces a lot of noise. What this firm had was an active noise canceling system which is similar to the headphones a lot of people wear. The speakers emit a very low, soft white noise that helps soften the sounds within the space.
I thought it might be a gimmick so they told me to just look out over all the workers in the open space. They pulled out a device and shut the system noise canceling system off. Within seconds all these heads started popping up looking around. When the system was active it helped people focus and when it was cycled off there was a dramatic change to the overall environment.
This memory came flooding back the other day when we saw the same system in a different office. I though there has to be a way we could bring this idea to the classroom.
HipsterSound - click on this
Getting started is wicked simple, just click the play button on the right side of the screen.
I clicked on two sounds and then adjusted the little slider below it.
There are a number of different soundscapes you can create by adding and subtracting sounds. Just try it out and see what results you get. One tiny bit of advice is to keep the overall volume low or very low to have the biggest impact.
Comments
Post a Comment