When NDA Group, a global architecture and design firm, began the refurbishment of their Shanghai office, the objective was clear: enhance acoustic comfort to support staff well-being and productivity. The existing open-plan layout led to noise transfer between zones, significantly impacting concentration and confidentiality. Activities in shared areas easily disrupted quieter spaces like private offices and meeting rooms, where sound insulation and reverberation control were lacking. The main challenge was to improve sound privacy while still allowing people to move freely between spaces — and doing so without making the acoustic solutions too complicated. Because the office was relatively small, it was especially important to handle each surface and layout detail with care.
Our team was brought in to improve the overall acoustic comfort of NDA’s refurbished office in Shanghai. The space included open-plan work areas, meeting rooms, and private offices, each with different acoustic needs. Noise traveled too easily from one room to another, disrupting focus and conversations. To address this, we carried out a full acoustic assessment of the existing space, performed simulations, and identified solutions to manage reverberation, sound transfer, and speech intelligibility. We worked closely with NDA’s design team from the early planning stages, ensuring that each solution fit both the technical and visual goals of the project. Our aim was to reinforce sound privacy and user comfort while keeping the approach simple and cost-effective.
The result was a quieter, more focused office where people can work and meet comfortably without sound interference. Thanks to close collaboration with NDA’s designers, the acoustic treatments were fully integrated into the interior design — keeping the look clean and natural. We were able to improve privacy in meeting and private rooms, reduce distractions in shared areas, and create a more balanced sound environment overall. This project also showed how effective acoustic solutions don’t need to be complex to deliver strong results — especially when design and acoustics are aligned from the start.
