Sound propagation between two adjacent rectangular workstations in an open-plan office—part II: effects of office variables

In part I of this paper a general model was developed of sound propagation between adjacent rectangular workstations in a conventional open-plan office. In this paper, the new model is used to investigate the importance of various office design parameters on calculated speech privacy. The additional effects of the side and back panels of complete workstations are examined in detail. Calculations for systematic variations of the principal design parameters show that the separating screen height and the ceiling absorption have the largest effects on expected speech privacy. High speech privacy can only be achieved with the combination of high screens, high ceiling absorption, and high panel absorption. Empirical corrections are developed to estimate how the presence of ceiling lights reduces the effective ceiling absorption. The complete model is shown to accurately predict speech privacy for a range of office design configurations with an RMS error in predicted SII values 0.02.