Agati Furniture
The Issue
Agati Furniture in Chicago needed an acoustical treatment to quiet their corporate offices. And they wanted it to be as beautifully designed as their furniture. What they installed were dynamic Whisperwave® Ceiling Clouds and vibrantly colored AlphaSorb® Tackable Acoustic Panels.
The Challenge
Open plan offices are great for facilitating collaboration between employees, but with the benefits come a few acoustical issues. This was exactly the case at Agati Furniture’s offices in Chicago. The low barriers between each employee’s workspace did nothing to keep conversation and other noise from traveling to neighboring stations. And with the high, bare ceilings, sound accumulated quickly and became amplified in the large room.
“Our offices are an odd shape, narrow and long,” said Joe Agati, Director of Design at Agati, “and sound carried a lot and reverberated off the ceiling”.
The Solution
Agati Furniture has a reputation for its sleek, contemporary office furniture, and the company’s own offices reflect the brand’s image. Joe Agati, Director of Design for Agati, wanted acoustical treatment that would solve the noise issues, but not detract from the aesthetic of the rooms.
“I like a blend of aesthetic and function. The treatments we used were not terribly complex but have an inherent beauty that to me makes them so much more appealing than plain acoustical drop tiles which have function but look so sterile,” says Agati.
The first treatment installed was AlphaSorb® Tackable Acoustic Panels, which were custom made in red to fit onto the interior of employee workstations, and in grey to attach around the perimeter of the room. These fabric wrapped acoustic panels are available in a wide variety of colors, and are tackable—a great feature for open plan offices that allows employees to personalize their space and keep organized.
These panels absorbed sound energy from conversation, phones, and music, reducing the noise traveling between personal spaces.
The second treatment was Whisperwave® Ceiling Clouds. This wave-shaped ceiling treatment is made of vibrant white acoustic foam and is suspended from the ceiling, offering large amounts of sound-absorbing surface area. This is the perfect solution for high reverberant ceilings and adds an artistic touch to the room’s design.
“The Whisperwaves look great. We installed lights beneath that create this cool gradient effect—we get so many comments on them and people asking where we got them,” says Agati.
Agati Furniture – Open office plan using red AlphaSorb® panels and Sonex® Whisperwave® Clouds in ceiling.
The Result
The result was a quieter room, and happier employees.
In the Customer’s Own Words
“All the panels and ceiling wave panels come out great. Everyone has asked where we got them, so I have been referring them to Acoustical Solutions. The treatment didn’t deaden the room but cut the echo a lot. You may be able to hear someone else in the office, but the noise isn’t piercing like it was before—it definitely helped a lot, and besides the product, Ryan was great to work with. He was very responsive, and the project had a great turnaround time. Even when he was unavailable when I called, someone at Acoustical Solutions would help me out. We are doing the downstairs soon and I will call Acoustical Solutions again when the time comes.”
— Joe Agati, Director of Design, Agati Furniture
To learn more about how Acoustical Solutions can solve your noise control problems, use our contact form, call one of our Acoustical Sales Consultants at (800) 782-5742, or visit us on the web at acousticalsolutions.com.
