The Green Dream: CP Group’s Sustainable HQ with Acoustic Comfort Built-in

To be truly sustainable, a building should be designed around the people who use it. It should enhance the quality of life and be a healthy and comfortable space to spend time in – and that’s why acoustic design is so important.

CP Group is the Vietnamese branch of the world’s largest food corporation, Charoen Pokphand Group. The company wanted its new headquarters, a nine-storey, 15 642 sqm building in Dong Nai, Vietnam to be a sustainable, healthy environment, built to LEED Platinum certification standards.

The LEED system awards credits based on each project’s impact on human health and community quality of life, as well as on climate change, biodiversity, and natural resources. Our task was to design the acoustics so that they would enhance employee well-being and meet these high standards.

CP Group’s campus includes plenty of green, relaxing space

The Green Spine: a solution and a challenge

The design brief was to create open-plan spaces that promote the connection between employees. The client wanted plenty of options for relaxing and taking exercise during breaks and they wanted to preserve the surrounding trees and greenery.

To meet this brief, MH Architects came up with the “Green Spine” concept, creating an atrium going from the basement to the third floor. This created beautifully connected, nature-filled spaces, but it also presented a challenge in terms of noise control: sound could carry via the “spine” to all the floors in the building.

Many of these floors also had specific acoustic needs, the executive floor, for example, was directly under the rooftop, which housed pumps and MEP equipment and was where regular events were held. The lounge also had a karaoke bar and open kitchen where guest chefs cook for VIP clients during business meetings.

Our acoustic consultants’ job was to carefully engineer the solutions that would reduce noise propagation and reverberation times and ensure acoustic comfort throughout the building.

An atrium sweeps from the basement to the third floor

What we did: putting acoustics at the forefront

We worked closely with MH Architects from the design concept phase. That meant our solutions would be built-in rather than having to be retrofitted at extra cost and with the risk of damaging the design intentions. Our work included:

• Reverberation treatment: Sound-absorbent materials in the walls, ceilings and furniture to ensure listening comfort and speech intelligibility in large, resonating areas.
• Insulation: Effective, glazed partitions to enable greater focus as well as listening comfort and privacy in sensitive areas.
• HVAC noise treatment: A silencer to control background noise.
• Rooftop MEP equipment noise treatment: Dampening to prevent vibrations from the rooftop reaching the floor below.
• Lounge noise treatment: Insulation and reverberation treatment in the social lounge.

CP Group’s acoustically treated & green working spaces

The key areas of treatment include:

• Open office areas, private offices, and meeting rooms.
• Studio room, convention hall, training center, dining room, social lounge, etc.
• Executive floor (for senior management and VIP guests).

Communal spaces promoting connection with acoustic comfort

Reaching the highest standards of sustainability with acoustics

The CP Group headquarters was awarded LEED Platinum certification, achieving the highest scores by integrating design with energy efficiency and a comfortable working atmosphere.

Acoustic engineering was crucial to this achievement, and we’re proud to have played a role in creating a building that is beautiful, healthy, and sustainable, on every level.

Check out the case study of Radiall’s LEED-certified Smart Factory to find out more about how acoustic design can help your project reach your sustainability goals.

Photos credit: MH Architects