Whether it is your home or office, you turn to your facility for refuge from the hustle and bustle of the busy streets. When it comes to getting quality work done on a daily basis, your office should be distraction-free. Between overheard conversations, honking cars or the echoing sound of a copy machine, it can be hard to concentrate and get work done in peace. What was once seen as an unavoidable nuisance is now easily reduced through plant life, as plants have been scientifically proven to help absorb, diffract and reflect sound. Here’s how:
While plants are known to have many benefits, they can now add noise absorption to the list. Adding a few plants to your office can greatly reduce unsolicited noise while also improving the ambiance of the building. Rough and thick plant parts such as stems, leave and branches are the most effective at absorbing sound due to their dynamic surface. The more plants you have and the greater their size, the more effective the botanicals will be in reducing unwanted noise.
Indoor plants are also good at diffracting and reflecting sound. At a lower frequency, leaves are able to vibrate, transforming the sound waves into other forms of energy and bending the noise into other directions. Additionally, because the leaf size is small compared to the noise wavelength, plants are able to reflect the noise towards other surfaces where the sound has since reduced. Without the plant and its flexible parts, the waves would hit the rigid walls that do not vibrate, causing the sound to be louder and echo.
When it comes to furnishing your office with natural aesthetics, consider several arrangements of varying sizes as opposed to one large one. By positioning several arrangements around your space, you increase the surface area, allowing for the noise to be reduced and more spaces to be effected by the plant arrangements. Plus, it doesn’t exactly hurt that they look amazing when installed professionally and arranged properly!
