Banking Company Training Room

Donna LaForge is the leading interior designer at LaForge Interiors and has seen her share of difficult projects. Her latest client, a banking company, had a large training room with hard bare surfaces, a 25-foot tall cathedral ceiling, and three dormer windows. This environment made it difficult to understand instruction or hear multimedia presentations clearly. “The room had a lot of reverberation,” says LaForge, “there was a lot of surface for sound to bounce off of”. LaForge was under even more pressure, considering that the company had already tried once to solve their noise issue, and failed. “The room previously had some old 1” fiberglass panels that were installed only on the ends of the room and were placed floor to ceiling. They were not very effective in placement or thickness. The sound was still bouncing from side to side and of course up the cathedral ceiling. I chose not to reuse the old panels as they would need to be cut to fit in useful locations and they were not stiff, so having a nice, clean, straight edge was going to be impossible for my contractors.” A few years prior, LaForge worked with Acoustical Solutions. when designing a renovation for a City Council Chamber. She called in again and spoke with Architectural Sales Representative Kathy Palimore: “[Acoustical Solutions] pricing is reasonable and the website makes it easy to find what I need. The videos are useful to me and my client. I was new to specifying this type of product so I appreciate the help that I received,” says LaForge.

LaForge chose to use AlphaSorb® Acoustic Panels because of their hardened edge and the range of standard and custom sizes and shapes available. The freedom of design when working with these acoustic panels makes them one of the most popular acoustical products on the market. She also decided to go with two-inch thick panels instead of the one-inch for extra sound absorption. Carefully choosing to place these panels along critical areas of the walls and ceiling, LaForge sent her design to Acoustical Solutions, where the panels were custom-made according to her specifications and sent directly to the job site.

The panels were easily installed with Acoustical Solutions’ z-clip system, and the results were exactly what the client had hoped for.

“The panels look great. The layout worked as planned and they were easy to install, especially considering the pattern I designed and the height of the ceiling. The reverberation has been eliminated and the client is very happy.” — Donna LaForge, Interior Designer, LaForge Interiors