Corporate Office Open-Plan Acoustics — Folsom

The Problem

A technology company in Folsom had leased two floors of a Class A office building and built out an open-plan workspace for their engineering and sales teams. The design looked great — modern, clean, collaborative. The acoustics were terrible. Sales reps on phone calls were audible three rows away. Engineers couldn't concentrate. The company was losing people who cited noise as a reason for wanting to work remote full-time.

The existing ceiling was basic builder-grade 2×4 mineral fiber tile with NRC 0.55. The walls were glass and drywall — hard surfaces that reflected sound instead of absorbing it. There were no wall panels, no baffles, no acoustic treatment of any kind beyond the mediocre ceiling tile.

Our Approach

We couldn't tear out the whole ceiling — the company needed to keep operating. Instead, we designed a layered acoustic treatment plan that could be installed in phases, section by section, during evening and weekend shifts. The plan targeted three things: ceiling absorption (replace the tiles), wall absorption (add panels), and zone separation (acoustic clouds over collaboration areas).

Products Used

Open Work Areas: We replaced all 2×4 tiles with Armstrong Optima tegular panels — NRC 0.95. That's about as much absorption as you can get from a ceiling tile. The existing grid was in good condition, so we kept it and just swapped tiles. This alone made a noticeable difference.

Collaboration Zones: The open-plan had several "huddle areas" with soft seating where teams gathered for informal meetings. We hung felt baffles in clusters above these zones — 24 baffles total in 6 groups of 4. The baffles absorb sound from both sides and visually define the collaboration areas as distinct zones within the open floor.

Conference Rooms: The glass-front conference rooms were echo chambers. We installed stretch wall panels on the back wall of each room — full wall coverage with 2" fiberglass core. NRC 0.85. Combined with the existing glass walls, this brought the RT60 in each conference room down from over 1.0 seconds to under 0.5 seconds.

Perimeter Walls: Along the corridor walls adjacent to the open work area, we installed felt wall panels in a mix of charcoal and slate blue. These panels serve double duty — acoustic absorption and design element. The facilities team liked that they doubled as tackable surfaces for posting project timelines.

Challenges

After-hours work in an occupied building means coordinating with building management on freight elevator access, noise restrictions (no hammer drilling after 10 PM in this building), and security access for our crews. We also had to protect all the workstations — monitors, keyboards, personal items. We used drop cloths over entire workstation clusters and rolled them up at the end of each shift so employees came back to a clean desk in the morning.

The felt baffles required structural attachment to the concrete deck above. The existing T-bar grid wasn't rated to carry the additional load of 4-foot baffles. We drilled into the deck and hung the baffles on independent cables — completely separate from the ceiling grid. That meant coordinating above-ceiling work while keeping the grid intact. Precise layout and careful tile removal/replacement around each hanger point.

Results

The company's HR team surveyed employees before and after the project. "Noise complaints" dropped from the #1 cited workplace issue to #7. The percentage of employees who said they could "focus effectively at their desk" went from 34% to 71%.

The conference rooms went from unusable for video calls (too much echo) to being the preferred meeting location. The felt baffles over the huddle areas became a design feature that visitors commented on.

Total investment was roughly $8 per square foot installed across all treatments. The company estimated the productivity improvement paid for the project within 6 months based on reduced work-from-home requests and fewer noise-related IT tickets (people requesting noise-canceling headsets as a "solution").

Key Takeaways

• Open office acoustics require a layered approach — ceiling tiles alone aren't enough
• NRC 0.95 tiles are worth the upgrade from basic 0.55 panels in noise-sensitive spaces
• Felt baffles define zones and absorb sound — functional and aesthetic
• After-hours installation keeps the business running — plan logistics carefully
• Employee surveys before and after quantify the ROI for the client