We are proud to announce that Sabina Moeller, vice-president with K.R. Moeller Associates is a recipient of the *IFMA Awards of Excellence 2021 Distinguished Author Award: Book.
Moeller received the award for leading all production aspects—including technical writing and design—of one of the most cohesive educational publications on commercial acoustics, SONARE: The Environmental Acoustics Magazine (SONARE).
SONARE was conceived of and led by Moeller because she wanted to create an evergreen and educational piece that focused on the concepts, factors and approaches that can help facility managers, architects, designers, and others in the building industry better understand acoustical issues and how to address them, as well as new perspectives on acoustical comfort, privacy and equity within the workplace.
The information in SONARE is delivered in an accessible and visually-stimulating format, including quality written content, artful layouts and professional photographs of inspirational workplaces.
With a return to office, occupant satisfaction has never been more important
Acoustics has always presented a challenge for those designing, building and managing facilities, and current workplace trends (e.g., more open-plan space, hard surfaces, open ceilings) have made it no easier. Achieving speech privacy, noise control and acoustical comfort is more challenging than ever, even as awareness of their relevance to occupants’ satisfaction, productivity and well-being increases.
Now, as companies start to bring—or attempt to draw—employees back to the office post-pandemic, occupant satisfaction is even more critical. Organizations need to implement strategies that not only keep staff safe and healthy, but also happy and productive enough within their working environment that they actually want to come in. Whether an organization wants its office to be occupied full-time or serve as a critical part of a hybrid working model, it has the potential to act as a great equalizer—a shared facility specifically designed to support employees’ work and well-being.
In order to achieve these goals, people need tools to help think about, discuss and plan for effective acoustics. Moeller successfully created SONARE to present the case for acoustics, identify common challenges and practical solutions, and also offer novel ways of thinking about acoustical design and its impact on occupants.
According to Moeller, “I am delighted and honoured to receive this award because it recognizes the need to provide useful and practical information on acoustics. We know it’s a challenging subject for many organizations because there are so many considerations. What methods are effective? How to support both focus and collaboration? What to do with an existing space? It’s also easy to prioritize other goals and lose sight of what really matters to workplace occupants. But in SONARE we show them that by planning for speech privacy and noise control, employees won’t only be happier about coming to work, they’ll be less stressed and more productive.”
“Our hope is that readers to come away feeling the topic is less mysterious—and inspired by the many spaces that sound as good as they look,” adds Moeller.
The broader commercial building industry has been very complimentary of SONARE, with countless requests received for it from around the world in both its print and online formats.
Erik Miller-Klein, principal of Acoustical Engineering with Tenor Engineering remarked, “The SONARE Magazine and the KR Moeller team have put together a cohesive publication on commercial acoustics that stands out in our industry. It highlights how standards, research, and design misconceptions affect the acoustic environments we experience every day.”
Similarly, Kenneth Good, acoustical specialist with Armstrong World Industries commented “How refreshing to have such accurate and practical explanations of the fundamentals of architectural acoustics. Sabina does an outstanding job of “demystifying” everyday acoustical problems most building occupants deal with every day. Then she breaks down solutions strategies in an easy common-sense way!”
To request a complimentary hard copy of SONARE, select ‘Request an Issue’ from the menu and complete the contact form.
* IFMA is the world's largest and most widely recognized association for facility management professionals. The IFMA Awards of Excellence program recognizes the outstanding achievements of individual members, chapters, councils, communities and partners. For more information on the awards, visit www.awards.ifma.org.