A shared office space can be an attractive option for small business. The work environment is collaborative and modern, and attractive to younger workers. Costs can be lower than a standard office lease due to sharing some costs and only renting essential space. However, there can be issues, including with acoustics.

Our client

Astral is a consulting business that specialises in information management. Like most businesses, their workers need space to collaborate, but also quiet to concentrate. When they first engaged Soundmask, they had moved into a shared office space. The purpose of the move was to meet the social and cultural needs of its growing, younger staff. However, as Astral discovered, with most such spaces noise transference was an unexpectedly big issue.

Noise transference

Many of the positive features of the shared office space became problems. While the high, open ceilings were aesthetically pleasing, compared with their previous office, distracting noise was amplified. Further, speech privacy was no long assured, even in private offices. This was due to the positioning, adjacent to a hallway used as a thoroughfare by other business users. When having private discussions, this was a big problem.

Thankfully, Soundmask had already been working with these kinds spaces for some time, as covered in a previous blog. This meant that we had the correct setup to achieve both speech privacy, as well as a reduction in perceived noise transference. Our transducers blended with the decor, and added a pleasant background sound.

Office turnover

In shared office spaces, the turnover can be high. This means that landlords are sensitive to any structural changes. Soundmask’s systems are lightweight, unobtrusive, and can be easily removed. This meant that Astral’s landlord was happy for the system to be installed.

A few years later, Astral decided to move out of the shared office space. They asked Soundmask to uninstall the system and reinstall it into their new space, which we did.