Improving acoustic clarity in a specialist healthcare environment
Northeastern University, formerly the New College of the Humanities, has a new campus at Devon House, in central London’s St Katharine Docks. With 38,000 square feet of space across the ground and first floors, the University’s home provides a wide range of accessible facilities for students and staff and space for the University to grow […]
Northeastern University, formerly the New College of the Humanities, has a new campus at Devon House, in central London’s St Katharine Docks.
With 38,000 square feet of space across the ground and first floors, the University’s home provides a wide range of accessible facilities for students and staff and space for the University to grow and evolve.
Working with contractor, Workplace Creations, Style was asked to create a flexible, collaborative space in the breakout area. As this is located in the main foyer it was also important for it to be a stylish, eye-catching solution to complement the chic styling of the building.
A series of panels, with decorative cut outs, provided a clever way of creating a partition that retained the open plan feel of the foyer whilst providing the flexibility to cordon off the area so that small groups could enjoy some privacy from the main room.
A particular benefit is that they can be located anywhere along the track system to create the desired division of space, but with the ability to also be stacked away when not required.
“This is less to do with formal room division and more to do with creating a solution that offers an aesthetic divide within the space,” said Michael Porter, Style’s group sales director.
“It’s also a good example of Style’s versatility as a moveable wall specialist, as it demonstrates some lateral thinking in helping Northeastern University create a degree of adaptability without formally cordoning off any aspect of the room.
“The end result is perfect for informal collaborations, breakouts from lectures and brainstorm sessions where students want to work in a public space, but have some degree of separation from the main room. Its also useful to create a screen so that students can enjoy a game of pool or some social time while others in the area are studying.
“The partitions also have sound absorption properties which means they reduce the level of
reverberation
, which is important in such a large open space.”
For more examples of collaborative workplace solutions, please visit the
working walls
section of Style’s website
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HBN 00-09 sets out these surface characteristics because unsealed joints are a recognised place for moisture and micro-organisms to collect. A genuinely joint-free edge is designed to address that specific detail.
This is a surface and edge specification, not a clinical claim. Zero-joint technology has not been evaluated or certified by NHS England, and does not claim to reduce infection rates.
Food-service and guest-facing areas are typically inspected under hygiene and housekeeping standards that look closely at surfaces and joints. A seamless, moisture-resistant edge is designed with exactly that kind of scrutiny in mind.
Every one of these sectors shares the same underlying surface problem: a bonded-strip edge is a seam, and a seam is a place where dirt, moisture or wear can concentrate in a way a continuous surface can't. Zero-joint technology addresses that one structural detail across offices, schools, healthcare and hospitality settings alike — one construction detail, one shared weak point removed, four sectors that each care about it for their own reasons.
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