Reactive acoustics

Abstract

This graduation project started as a continuation of an earlier design project. The design team Bdot, a group of students from the TU Delft, made a concept design for the company Merford. After the success of the Bdot concept, Merford was inspired to continue development further to a high fidelity prototype or even production. The open workspace, or so called ‘office garden’, is becoming more popular in modern and renovated office spaces. Such office spaces do not have many walls, which offers benefits to work culture development but can also lead to a variety of problems. Research shows that acoustic hindrance is one of the biggest problems found in open workspaces (JMP, 2017). The concept developed during the JMP project provides a solution to that problem. The Pinecone as designed by the JMP group, ended with a concept design and a prototype which showed the sense of scale of the product. This graduation project will focus on three important aspects of the design. First of all, the panel will be redesigned, having a refined finish and look. Secondly, a solution for hanging the acoustic panels had to be designed. From the beginning of this graduation project, the idea came up to make panels modular, and connecting them instead of hanging them on complete rings. Thirdly, the focus was on designing a functional retraction mechanism making the prototype prove that the mechanics will work for the end product. A new design brief was made, including these three focus points. Together with the company Merford and information from the previous design report, a list of criteria was formed for guiding this project. During the exploration phase of this project, numerous resources were reviewed. This gave more information and inspiration for several solutions for each focus area. The development of these focus areas was a very iterative process. Finding solutions, then getting more information through experts, and making revisions of these solutions to find better ones happened multiple times. During this iterative process, the switch between design for end product and design for a show-model had to be made continuously. This means that during the development chapter, conclusions are drawn for both the prototype and for the end design of this project. The prototyping phase focused on getting a working prototype build. The goal of this prototype was to prove the mechanics would work, together with being a show model for Merford. The prototype will eventually hang in the showroom of Merford and will be used for business events and fairs. The final chapter elaborates on the final design of the Pinecone. Materials, production techniques and production series are spoken of in this chapter. The chapter doesn not only give the design of the ‘standard’ Pinecone, but also gives multiple opportunities and possibilities for Merford to sell more Pinecones in the near future.