The Sound of Silence

Well hello there, and thanks so much joining me today. With this podcast, I know there are so many fun, playful topics to cover like color and materials, but there are also critical discussions to be had around the more invisible aspects of interior design - the kind of things you only notice when they aren’t working. And today is one of those days. Whether you live in an apartment or a cabin in the woods, the sounds you can and cannot hear make a huge difference in your overall comfort of living. We are talking all about how sound plays a role in the psychology of space, and how you can set up your home to run at optimal performance.

Before I get into today’s topic, I wanted to make a few exciting announcements! Next week is Soft Landing’s one year anniversary! I cannot believe it’s been a year. I’m so grateful for all the love and support you’ve given me; and the conversations I have had with you over the past 12 months. If you’ve been with me from the beginning or you’ve started listening recently, I appreciate you so much, I really can’t tell you enough what a privilege it is to interact with you in this virtual space. SO, we are celebrating in a few different ways. Firstly, I announced this in my Instagram stories, but I haven’t said it on the podcast yet - I have a website that is up and running! This website contains transcripts of our most recent episodes, and I am working through the backlog to get all episodes transcribed. Because accessibility is hugely important and not everyone can listen to podcasts. Presently, episodes back through March 2021 are available for your reading pleasure. The other great thing about this website is that you can book appointments with me directly through my website. I have a few packages to chose from, whether you want a quick Creative Consultation, a Design Support four meeting series, or if you would like to book my full services as your interior designer for your home, small office, or retail store. The website is Softlandingstudio.com and I will of course have a link in the show notes. I enjoy helping you so much through the podcast, and these services are an opportunity to take that to the next level and talk about your specific projects. Secondly, next week I will be releasing a free PDF Guide to Getting started, which is so fun and will help you know where to begin on your interior design project, and identifying your next steps. Also, next week I will be announcing a very cool giveaway so stay tuned. That’s the end of my housekeeping announcements, now let’s get into sound!

Oxford’s Dictionary defines acoustics as “the properties or qualities of a room or building that determine how sound is transmitted in it.”

The acoustic quality of a space is one of the most overlooked components of a well planned interior, after all - most of us aren’t living on sound stages! But when it comes to things like a good nights sleep, co-existing in harmony with house mates and family,  and especially now - the ability to have a quiet space to put in a solid day’s work - acoustics matter.  Noise, especially loud and sudden ones, have a direct connection to stress, cortisol levels, and even long term heath affects. We’ve all had the experience of staying in a hotel with paper thin walls, hearing neighbors with loud voices, foot steps, cars honking - it’s no fun, and it can feel like you don’t have any control of your environment. 

But, not all sounds are bad - lots of sounds become more like background noise when they feel appropriate to the space we are in, like the sound of trees rustling in the wind, birdsong, a rainstorm. Some sounds are even grounding, like hearing a loved one moving around in another room. I have childhood memories of falling asleep to the muffled sound of my family’s TV playing the late night news in the next room. It was familiar and comforting to me.

So how do we keep the bad sounds out and the good sounds in? It all depends on your goals.

I’ve designed spaces that require intense acoustic support - including recording booths for voice over work, TV stages, editing suites, high security conference rooms, and even your typical Human Resources suite. All of these spaces had specific needs to ensure that sound either doesn’t come in, or doesn’t go out - or both. One of the most interesting things I learned from a mechanical point of view when designing sound stages, is that the ductwork has to absolutely HUMUNGOUS. The wider the air ducts for heating and cooling, the quieter the sound of the air moving will be. If the duct work is compressed, the air moving around is far more audible. So when the ducts are big, air can move enough to temper the space, but not be heard. Unlike that pesky AC window unit that makes it sound like you’re in a wind tunnel. 

The most important thing when designing any space is understanding what the acoustic needs are -and this can fall into personal preference when it comes to home design. For instance, rooms like the bedrooms, the bathroom, and a home office are likely to need a good amount of acoustic privacy. Muffled voices can be audible at the most. Depending on your goals, you may want there to be as little sound transmission as possible in these rooms. But rooms like the dining room, living room, and kitchen tend to not need this level of isolation, in fact the opposite is usually desired, and you want to be able to hear somewhat easily from room to room. What’s that saying? Marriage is just yelling “what?!” from another room? 

Ideally, there is an acoustic buffer between these two distinct zones of the home - the more active living spaces and the more private spaces. This is particularly important if household members keep conflicting hours. Night owls and early morning risers can co-exist in the same space without walking on eggshells. So, how do you accomplish this? There are two types of goals with acoustics - keeping sounds from coming in/going out, and controlling how sound behaves within a room. AKA the dreaded echo. Echos tend to be mitigated well enough when a room is filled with furniture and belongings, but it can actually be avoided completely with the right construction materials

Starting with the easiest, non-invasive solution, if you’re having a challenge with noise, a good investment is to get a few white noise machines. White noise is often misunderstood, it isn’t a soundtrack of nature sounds that gets played in the background. It’s more of a gentle, even, and continuous “whoosh” sound that “cancels” other noises around us. These often look like speakers or little round pucks that can be placed anywhere in your home. These are super common for homes with sleeping newborns, but they can be used drown out street noise, conversations, and anything else that may be distracting you. Try placing one in a few rooms of your home so they work together as a system.

The next thing to consider is materiality. Starting with my personal favorite acoustic solution - carpet. The floor in your house does so much work. It takes more of beating that any other surface, gets walked all over every day, it’s visually the most dominant surface in your house, and it’s your homes’ main line of defense against sound transmission and echoes. Whether you chose to install wall-to-wall broadloom, carpet tile, or simply lay down an area rug; keeping the surface of the floor soft will improve the acoustic control in your home dramatically (wherever possible of course, wet areas like kitchens and bathrooms definitely should NOT have carpet). If you do have a hard surfaced floor, one option that can be helpful is to install an acoustic underlay. This is a roll of essentially rubber that will help cushion the hard flooring, and make it more comfortable underfoot, absorb some sound, and reduce the noise from footsteps on the floor.

In general, when you’re thinking about the materials in each room of your home, from an acoustic standpoint the rule of thumb is to have three surfaces be a soft or acoustic material. So that’s thinking about the floor, the ceiling, and four walls - six surfaces in total. Half of them should be soft - whether that’s the floor and two walls; or the ceiling, the floor, and one wall; or three walls; it’s really up to you. For instance, if you’re thinking  you really want to use hardwood flooring everywhere in your home, then you know you have to support it with soft surfaces on the walls and/or ceiling. 

Thinking of soft flooring maybe pretty straight forward, but what about walls? There are applied materials that you can install overtop of your existing drywall like felt wall covering and cork panels. If you are renovating or building new this is where a lot of opportunities to address acoustics head on can be had. You can consider using a product like “quiet” gypsum drywall, which is formulated differently than regular drywall. That will help, but the real trick,  is to design the wall so that it extends all the way to structure of the ceiling above, whether that’s that roof or the underside of the slab above. Many walls are built just tall enough to meet the finished face of the ceiling - this saves time and money during the construction process, but it leaves a hallow open bouncy cavity in the ceiling that allows sound to travel easily from room to room. If acoustic isolation is your goal, build those walls all the way up. You can also chose to add two layers of drywall to your walls for extra cushion - especially in locations where you are trying to separate a noisy space from a quiet one.

Another wall trick that’s a little out of the box, and is really meant more for glass walls, is to cant or slant the wall itself. Part of what causes an echo is sound waves hitting a completely flat, vertical surface and bouncing straight off of it. By slanting the wall, this reduces reverberation, and effectively allows you to have hard surfaced walls in a room without an echo. This happens naturally in a top floor or attic space of a home with a pitched roof - so consider your attic for a recording space or office and take advantage of the natural acoustic protection. You’ll also see this with glass walls in garden apartments or penthouse apartments, usually next to a terrance. The main reason this is implemented is to allow sunlight into the space, but it has a great acoustic side affect. I always think of the framed window in Monica and Rachel’s apartment on Friends. What an absolute gem of an architectural feature! For a waitress and line cook, they were living the sweet life.

While offices make use of the economically efficient (yet extremely difficult on the eyes) acoustic ceiling tiles, there are acoustic ceiling options that are actually quite beautiful. As I mentioned with walls, straight, flat, hard ceilings will bounce sound around and amplify it. Consider using architectural devices such as coffers, wood slats, or baffles in your ceiling to add texture and acoustic permeability. 

Even with all the materiality sorted out, the weakest point of any room acoustically is the point of entry. Whether it’s a door or a window,  make sure to check your opening’s acoustic information - which includes a rating called an STC (Sound Transmission Class). The higher the STC, the more sound will be blocked. Typical windows usually rate somewhere in the mid-30’s, while sound blocking windows end up in the high 40’s. Depending on the noise around your home, you may be fine with an STC rating in the 30’s, but if you’re actively trying to keep sound out, an STC of 50 will get you to a place where someone could be yelling outside your house and you wouldn’t hear them. Keep in mind windows like this are considerably more expensive as they typically use two or three panes of glass.

The same concept applies to doors, both inside your house and the ones leading outside. There are all kind of details that can be added to a door that help raise its STC and block sounds including the material at the core of the door, the style of hinge and how much space it takes up, and the seal at the sides and bottom of the door.

So I know this was a ton of information, let’s review. Your acoustic strategy menu includes white noise, soft materials on three surfaces, wall construction that goes up to the slab, double layers of dry wall, slanted walls, texture ceilings, and insulating the points on entry. Wherever you are in the process of upgrading your home, one or more of these strategies can be used to ensure you are only hearing the noises you want to hear.  Thank you so much for joining me today, if you enjoyed this podcast please give it a five star rating on Apple Podcasts, it helps keep the podcast going and strengthens its reach. You are so awesome, I can’t wait to talk to you next time!