Acoustic Timber on display at NeoCon 2022

Developing innovative designs while considering how occupants interact with interior spaces is a challenge all interior designers relish. Keeping up to date with current trends, strategies, and new technologies can be a difficult task with many designers flocking to tradeshows to get ahead of changes and anticipate future movements in the fast-paced design industry.

Since 1969, Chicago has hosted the largest interior design industry event, NeoCon— providing a space for designers to learn and collaborate. Displaying the design industry’s newest innovations and trends from all over the globe, it provides many businesses with the opportunity to share their hard work and developments in the interior design world. This year our carbon neutral Acoustic Timber™ will be featured in SnapCab’s “Space To Be You” Pod Design Contest. The Japandi Pod, designed by Emma Franceschina, was selected as the overall winner and will be on display at NeoCon.

“It’s such a small space and in tight spaces like that you really have to take into account the acoustical value, so you want to make sure that you don’t go in there and it sounds really noisy and stressful.”

With the pod being an intimate workspace, she wanted to make sure that there was a sense of subconscious calmness for the occupants. This is where you can find the influence of both biophilic design as well as the influence of Japanese and Scandinavian aesthetics. The use of natural inspired materials, abundant natural light, and an acoustically quiet space allows anyone using the pod to achieve a sense of zen.

Often timber can seem like one of the best materials to help give a workspace a natural feeling. Yet this material comes with its own issues around weight, cost and fire compliance, making it difficult to use in many spaces. Alternatives can also miss the mark and if you have not accurately represented a natural element like timber, you run the risk of forcing the design, breaking any sense of believability.

Through the development stages, Emma was looking for an acoustic product that would still allow her to maintain the natural characteristics of the pod. Maximising the acoustics within the space was a priority which led her to finding Acoustic Timber. The authentic timber look, and high-performance acoustics met both the aesthetic and functional needs in one product.

Fitting products into a tight space is never an easy task, as such we had to adapt our baffle system to consider the unique challenges of this project. This included developing new fabrication methods that concealed typically unseen hardware and adding finish details to ensure a perfect fit. The ability to adapt our materials into different products makes it suitable for a variety of different products and environments within the built space.

Acoustic Timber is available in panels, ceiling tiles and baffles with ten different authentic timber designs to choose from.