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Sound, noise, acoustical comfort in healthy buildings with ethan bourdeau
101 Plays4 years ago
Welcome to episode 48 of the Green & Healthy Places podcast in which we discuss the themes of wellbeing and sustainability in real estate.
I’m your host, Matt Morley of Biofilico Healthy Buildings and in this episode we’re in New York talking to Ethan Bourdeau, the Sound Concept Lead at the International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) - the organization powering the WELL healthy building rating system.
An architectural acoustician, Ethan also runs Bourdeau Acoustical Design to provide consultation and planning services for critical listening, performance venue, residential, restaurant, retail, and commercial projects internationally.
Additionally, he holds down a role as Executive Director of Standards and Built Environment for Quiet Parks International (QPI).
Ethan and I discuss the role of acoustics in creating a comfortable environment for building occupants; how pink noise can cover up unwanted background noise, sound zones and spatial layouts; the all important distinction between sound, silence, the sounds of nature and noise; the role nature sounds can play in promoting wellness; and the main causes of noise in a building that need to be mitigated in a comprehensive healthy building acoustics plan in line with the WELL Sound concept he helped conceive.
GUEST / ETHAN BOURDEAU
HOST / MATT MORLEY
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Transcript
Introduction to Episode 48
00:00:11
Speaker
Welcome to episode 48 of the Green and Healthy Places podcast, in which we discuss the themes of wellbeing and sustainability in real estate today. I'm your host, Matt Morley, founder of Biofilico Healthy Buildings. And in this episode, we're in New York, talking to Ethan Bordeaux, the sound concept lead at the International Well Building Institute, the IWBI.
Ethan Bordeaux's Roles and Background
00:00:35
Speaker
That's the organization driving the well healthy building rating system that you'll often hear me talking about.
00:00:41
Speaker
An architectural acoustician, Ethan also holds down a curious role as Executive Director of Standards and Built Environment for Quiet Parks International. We'll touch on that too.
Importance of Acoustics in Comfort
00:00:52
Speaker
Primarily though, we're discussing the role of acoustics in creating a comfortable environment for building occupants.
00:00:58
Speaker
look at things like pink noise and how that can cover up unwanted background noise, the creation of sound zones and spatial layouts in an acoustic performance plan, the all-important distinction between sound silence and just plain noise, the role nature sounds can play in promoting wellness and the main causes of noise in a building that need to be mitigated in a comprehensive healthy building and acoustics plan in line with the well sound concept that he
00:01:23
Speaker
himself helped conceive and that would be then part of a well-certification plan. Ethan of course has impeccable audio on the other side and he is a wealth of information so this was a real pleasure. Here he is, Ethan Bordeaux. Ethan, a pleasure to have you here. I'd like to start with some basics if we may. What was your path into sound design and audio engineering and for people who are perhaps not entirely familiar with how that relates to real estate perhaps you could give us a very sort of quick intro to
00:01:53
Speaker
that bridge between those worlds. Sure. Well, thanks, Matt. It's great to be here. I'm happy to discuss this. So my background in acoustics and sound goes back to my days as a musician growing up. So I've practiced and spent a lot of time performing on the euphonium, which is a low brass tuba-like instrument that carried me throughout a degree in music performance and acoustical engineering at the University of Hartford. So yeah, dabbling in
00:02:22
Speaker
constant listening to my own sound, my ensemble mate's sound really led me to want to better understand the way that interior environments sounded and to what degree architects and designers have the ability to manipulate shape and help make better the sounds of spaces that we spend most of our time inside of. So we're going to come around and dig into all
Quiet Parks International Mission
00:02:48
Speaker
of that. I wanted to, I think in a sense, the work that you're doing
00:02:53
Speaker
with the QPI, so the Quiet Parks project that you're working on, I think in a way might give us a starting point. And then we go into how that connects with noise and interiors, right? Because in a sense, it's, well, here's the best case scenario as in a quiet natural environment. So I'd love to hear a little bit about what you're doing there and how that gives us a baseline of excellence in a way of what we perhaps evolutionary in tune with where we came from in terms of sound and noise and backgrounds.
00:03:22
Speaker
Sure. So my work with Quiet Parks International is my latest endeavor. It's been the result of a year's worth of collaboration with folks like Gordon Hempton, Vikram Chauhan. I'm going to have to get a correction on how to pronounce his name. And other field recordists that have all come together under this one mission of preserving and recognizing quiet in the natural and built environments throughout the world.
00:03:51
Speaker
And their expertise so far has brought them to places like Glacier National Park, Haleakala Crater on Hawaii, and various other urban and wilderness quiet parks throughout the world as potential candidates for meeting our various set of criteria that denotes and best exemplifies what quiet really means to surrounding or visiting populations. And we have
00:04:18
Speaker
over the past year, work to define what that criteria actually looks like. How do we define quiet from a physical, a parametric, and even a subjective standpoint? To what degree do we assess using audio technology, sound level meters, audio recording devices, and even just anecdotal and colloquial evidence that we can get from people with boots on the ground in those areas to describe quiet? And then
00:04:46
Speaker
Over time, we're planning to develop a better understanding of how quiet and the definition of silence and tranquility changes around the world. So we're actively recruiting and finding candidate spaces, including a site here in New York City, actually, that we're hoping can add more flavor to understanding and unraveling that narrative.
00:05:08
Speaker
So these are areas where you're able to watch some of the videos, where there's no obvious intervention of a built environment. You are effectively out in a completely isolated, natural corner of the world. And so the quiet, it's not necessarily silence from what I can gather, it's
00:05:25
Speaker
the sounds of nature and no man-made interventions. Is that a fair assumption? It is for the most part. We do find ourselves in instances where the term silence could perhaps be the only classification in the case of some of remote places like Haleakala Crater. But you're right. For the most part, we are entering places where the soundscape is defined by sources of sound that are not man-made. They are
00:05:50
Speaker
a part of the natural landscape. They could be geographical features, they could be animals, migratory birds, insects, etc.
Is Acoustic Comfort Subjective?
00:06:00
Speaker
So if we then use that as a bridge into the discussion around interiors and buildings, the idea of acoustic comfort or acoustical comfort, do you see that as being a fundamentally objective measure, or is it all to do with how each individual responds to noise and their personal reactions?
00:06:23
Speaker
to whether it's too quiet or too silent or is it the measures that you can use that would say well this is the optimal acoustic comfort to perform a certain task.
00:06:34
Speaker
I'd say in either case, one informs the other. With the case of the populations and occupants within those space, we can learn a lot about where are those people coming from, if they're entering a new office environment that's undergoing renovation, to what degree can their past and prior experiences with the acoustical or even just the indoor environmental quality of where they're originally used to, how does that inform the way that we as designers
00:07:01
Speaker
can approach better facilitating, better sounding spaces for that matter. And acoustics is just one element of a holistic platform of comfort metrics that really are operating in synchronicity. And I think one great example is, and I hope we get a chance to maybe dive into this a little bit further, is how the well rating system has been able to
00:07:25
Speaker
break this apart into the various concepts among which includes sound as a key feature where we look at spatial layout. We define acoustic thresholds and criteria for optimal performance, which is pulled from the leading acoustical standards that we find regionally and throughout the world, and in some cases includes novel requirements for acoustical design and acoustical comfort that have yet to really hit the market outside of the well-rating system.
00:07:53
Speaker
So there's a combination of the two. We can really assess where people are coming from and have a better understanding. And that can be informed through survey results. Some great examples include UC Berkeley and Leesman survey indices that have indicated that occupants are quite dissatisfied for the most part with acoustics on the whole.
00:08:14
Speaker
And it's a huge opportunity, I think, for not just acousticians, but really architects, designers, folks who are consulting in the space of biophilic design to really ask those questions of what is it about the sonic environment that maybe even I don't quite fully understand or can convey to occupants and clients who are coming from those areas where that was a large concern and maybe an obstacle towards a better productive and more fulfilling workplace experience.
Common Noise Sources in Buildings
00:08:43
Speaker
Okay, so I think there's two things there. Let's look at what the typical causes of unwanted noise in buildings might be, be that an office, a hotel, or a learning environment, or a residential environment, and then how the well-standard concept of sound mapping can be used to anticipate and plan ahead for those. So let's look at the noise. So where are the noises coming from?
00:09:09
Speaker
Many different sources. For the purposes of an initial review of any given building or structure, we'll look at a few things. We'll look at environmental impacts from exterior noise intrusion that can be sources such as traffic, aviation noise, pedestrian noise, depending on where this place is located.
00:09:31
Speaker
We also look at interior mechanical systems design and the way that building services can potentially impact not just any one given space, but the building at large, which introduces sound in a number of ways. Sound can travel through air, it can travel through vents in HVAC systems. You can also travel through structures if you have large rotating pieces of mechanical equipment that are delivering air throughout a building, or even filtration systems in some instance. The vibration of air and movement
00:10:00
Speaker
can enter the structure and then radiate throughout an entire building in some cases. And then we can also talk about occupant generated noise in the office that can be as one of my friends likes to say the person next to you with the frito lays chip bag in the middle of the day making sounds while you're on one of your one hundred zoom calls for the week.
00:10:20
Speaker
or it could just be any combination of activity that's happening again throughout the building. So while sound again travels through air, it can also travel through structures and with the proliferation of fitness areas and CrossFit gyms and other types of ways that we're spending our time in the built environment to
00:10:42
Speaker
activate other elements of a better, healthier lifestyle. Things like impact noise from weights can travel well throughout an entire building as well. And those can lead to distractions and other obstacles, again, that occupants face due to noise in the built environment. And so the process of sound mapping, then, would be an attempt to prevent the construction and the eventual fit-out on a building project
00:11:11
Speaker
being completed and then realizing you've got sound issues. So trying to, if you like, put on your x-ray glasses upfront and presumably one of these sort of quite collaborative processes, right? So you're talking to the HVAC engineers, the architects, quite a few people around that table to try and get a sense of what the acoustic environment will be like in a space, especially on a new build construction.
Sound Mapping Process
00:11:35
Speaker
Correct. So as acoustical consultants, what we tend to direct our clients to is this fundamental concept of source, path, and receiver. So when it comes to acoustics, there's something that's generating the sound, the source, which can be controlled or maintained in some instances. It gets a little difficult when we talk about occupants, for instance. But for mechanical noise, exterior noise intrusion, there's some ways to investigate noise control at the source.
00:12:02
Speaker
There's the path. So what is between that source and the receiver? With HVAC, we mentioned ductwork. There's also structural components. Are we reducing vibration caused by circular mechanical equipment? And in the case of occupant noise, what's blocking you from not just the
00:12:21
Speaker
the path of the sound, but also even the line of sight with you and another person. That plays a role in what we call psychoacoustics or the role that acoustics plays in our own mental and cognitive
00:12:36
Speaker
health and well-being within the built environment. And then there's receiver. And so that's us. We're the listeners. And that's ultimately the final crux in the acoustic comfort equation of who is receiving this? How are they responding to this? And then how can we then qualitatively assess the subjective outcomes of how noise, how sound becomes noise? Because not all sound is noise. Sound is sound until it annoys you. And then that becomes noise.
00:13:08
Speaker
It brings to mind a project that I was involved in in Switzerland. It was a round-shaped concrete and glass corporate headquarter building.
00:13:20
Speaker
a big sort of natural food business and we were called in to assist both on the biophilic design side but also trying to fix the incredible noise issues and it really was noise problems that they had because they had obviously a lot of hard surfaces, they had these sort of central atriums that were allowing sounds basically just sort of bounce around from the ground level reception up to almost the second floor of the building.
00:13:44
Speaker
And we were looking around, what are the options in terms of introducing acoustic materials and everything from paint to plants. But I'd love to hear how you think about what the tools available
00:14:02
Speaker
to a consultant in that type of environment, who's a specialist really in that type of thing. You're going into a space, they have a problem with noise, and it's already happening. And you're sort of, in a sense, playing catch up, trying to beat something that's already, you know, it's left the gates. So what sort of, what's your suite, what's your toolbox in front of you as you go into a project like that? Like what are the most, what are the big guns that you have to pull out, sort of resolve a problem like that?
00:14:30
Speaker
Well, the biggest question that I would ask at the start is the one that I hoped the project team would have asked before creating a space like this.
00:14:39
Speaker
What is it the intent of this space? Why are people congregating here? What exactly are the activities and the experiences that are want to happen in this particular environment? From there, then we can define criteria and we can work with the team to say, unless you do this, you will not be able to achieve XYZ.
00:15:02
Speaker
So in the case of this building that you're describing, it sounds like there could be issues with speech intelligibility, or potentially even issues with too much speech intelligibility, where there are areas where you want to hear someone speak and you simply can't hear them. And then when you're working at your desk, you might be hearing more conversations than you may like to.
00:15:22
Speaker
And so that's where we pull out the really specific solutions-based examples for acoustic and interior design and noise control. So in these cases, we would look at how do we reduce the sound in that path equation that we were talking about in source path and receiver?
00:15:41
Speaker
bolster speech reinforcement if someone is giving a presentation, if they're giving a lecture, or even if they're talking on a simple Zoom call. We're now starting to add tools to our toolkit that address this COVID lifestyle, this hybrid workplace lifestyle where we can
00:15:59
Speaker
communicate with others around the world like you and I are right now and not necessarily need to be in a studio that has acoustic panels like mine, you can be in a place that that considers speech intelligibility without really breaking the bank and creating something that's a studio quality space. And that's all in
00:16:17
Speaker
in partnership with these clients and these project teams that you meet them on the level of the expectation and the intent, and then the outcome experiences that they're hoping that occupants in these spaces can have. And that's what drives the acoustic solutions over any particular criteria that I can sort of name off the top of my head. There's no one element of acoustic comfort that should be focused for every single project. Every single project is different.
00:16:47
Speaker
Acoustics is no different than any other specialty discipline where that is the case. There's a hyper specialized solution for most projects. So well is especially strong I found on mixed use buildings and particularly around commercial and office buildings. And so imagine we have an open plan office space for a creative team.
00:17:13
Speaker
And you go in and you can see that there was obvious desire on the part of the designers originally. The intent was to create more collaboration. And I think we've all seen that there's been a bit of a kickback on that over recent years around where actually productivity may not be
00:17:28
Speaker
boosted by that. Or if you go for an open plan office space, then we need to compensate in a way with some more intimate spaces that are perhaps designed for Skype call or typically now to sort of an online one on one call in an
00:17:44
Speaker
an enclosed environment where you haven't got distracting noises and equally that there are places where it's comfortable, allowed and permitted to have engaging, possibly loud conversations with
Optimizing Open Spaces for Acoustics
00:17:55
Speaker
others. So as you're seeing the world of offices now, how are you, what do you think an optimal mix might be? Do you think there's still space for open plan but with certain acoustical interventions to prevent that sort of typical sound reverb situation?
00:18:14
Speaker
It's a hot topic in the acoustics industry right now. I'm fortunate to sit on a few working group committees for ISO and other standards groups that are specifically looking at interior acoustics in the open work plan environment.
00:18:29
Speaker
And these conversations get very complicated very quickly because the culture of open office acoustics and open office use in general changes so much as you as you go into different regions throughout Europe and especially between North America, Europe and the rest of the world. And so where we pull this criteria from to develop and design better acoustics and open offices changes
00:18:57
Speaker
changes quite a bit. What I like to do again is really take it back to some fundamental steps. On a lot of these working group discussions, I bring up what I feel the well-rating system has done so well in tearing down into the fundamentals of what types of zones could you potentially think about and what are the lowest common denominators for acoustical comfort when
00:19:19
Speaker
thinking about spatial layout in workplace and from a workplace strategy perspective in an open office. So we have a few categories. We have in well-featured SO1, we break it down into quiet zones where focused work is the priority. Or that could also include places like bedrooms, for instance. What is an area that you want to protect in terms of acoustic comfort and make entry as a sensitive space?
00:19:48
Speaker
We then have mixed zones, which could be a combination of any of those things and include collaboration. Not all collaboration necessarily has to be boisterous and loud and people shouting over a desk of floor plans or whatever. It could also just be, hey, we're going to meet together as a team in this open environment and discuss XYZ.
00:20:08
Speaker
amongst ourselves at appropriate levels. And so in the process of talking about like a mixed zone, that's where we can really move the conversation to better defining, well, what does collaboration mean for you? Could you write it out? Is there a demonstration of what that means for you and your organization?
00:20:24
Speaker
And then we have loud zones. And so these could be any combination of areas where you have noisy mechanical equipment that just needs its own isolated, dedicated space to be moved away from any other sensitive environments. Or these could be places where you have amplified speech.
00:20:41
Speaker
You have maybe a very active teleconference room that uses amplification. So these are areas that you really need to keep separate from your quiet zones. And we list that out very, very carefully in the precondition. This is required for every single well project in the sound concept.
00:20:59
Speaker
Now, we have found that when people approach from this lens, they have a better idea of, well, I know now what I should probably be pursuing with our subsequent optimizations in the well-rating system. Based on the spatial layout that we were required to do, I know that speech reinforcement is going to be important. I know that speech privacy in my quiet zones in my open office is going to be important. So what do I need to do to then show up and make sure I'm meeting those needs for my occupants?
00:21:28
Speaker
And those conversations become very fruitful. We learn a lot more about acoustics than we would if we were just meeting criteria, if we were just submitting documentation saying, from an acoustician, you pass. Here's the check mark. Here's the check in that box of acoustic comfort. So I would encourage folks who are in that position of rethinking the open office from an acoustic perspective to really focus on the lowest common denominator. How many spaces do you intend to have there? We're focused, quiet work.
00:21:58
Speaker
is a key function of the holistic open office design and start from there because if collaboration is the leading draw to creating an open collaborative space, the folks who rely on quiet zones to complete their work have needs that aren't being met by the design team and the organization who put collaboration first when in reality people want a healthy balance of both.
Role of Sound Masking Systems
00:22:22
Speaker
And what also mentions the idea of sound masking systems and the idea of
00:22:28
Speaker
there being, as I understand it, a level of white noise that can be used and pumped into the background to create a baseline that can help cover some of the mechanical systems. How does that work? Is that about the frequency? Is it about the intensity of the sound? And would that be, say, some nature sounds?
00:22:50
Speaker
would that fit into that category or would that go a step further into trying to actively influence the occupant mood or their sort of anxiety levels or is the two in fact more or less one and the same?
00:23:04
Speaker
Sound masking is a very tried and true technology that as a consultant, I've been able to deploy quite a bit in open office settings with great success. What it really focuses on is delivering a pink noise signal, which is somewhat calmer than white noise, which if you were able to compare the two on YouTube, I guarantee you will have preference over pink noise to over white noise.
00:23:31
Speaker
Why we choose pink noise is because you can also go into the sound source itself and adjust the contour of that equalization curve so that it can really match and really perform in accordance with preferred acoustic comfort parameters. Now, that's more of the technical side of how you would deploy a system like this. But what a sound masking system is is a network of
00:23:56
Speaker
loudspeakers that are directly mounted, hung from, or otherwise located throughout a ceiling plane or even plenum. They can be directly exposed or they can be behind an acoustic ceiling tile. So it's a very useful tool when we try to address speech privacy from a signal to noise perspective. And now signal to noise meaning
00:24:18
Speaker
You have a signal which could be another person talking, their voice throughout an office that you don't necessarily need to hear. And then noise being what is the background sound level that allows you to discern that signal or the sound of another person's voice. And so as we raise that background sound, the signal, the difference between the ambient level and the signal is then reduced.
00:24:41
Speaker
And so that helps with reducing the total impact of hearing another person's voice encroaching on your ability to focus and be better productive in a workplace. Now to your other question about
00:24:55
Speaker
natural sounds as a sound source. I'm, as a designer and working with folks who are field recordists and who are architectural designers, I'm actively trying to indicate that introducing natural soundscapes into the built environment is
00:25:12
Speaker
It's a new format of introduced sound. Sound masking is a form of introduced sound that focuses specifically on speech privacy. Natural soundscapes have a number of potential benefits to them as well. Being immersed and hearing soundscapes of birds, wind, waves, et cetera, in a spatially uniform environment can elicit emotional response in ways that addressing speech privacy, for instance, isn't necessarily going to do.
00:25:41
Speaker
And there are some really tremendous examples of new technology that's emerging that focuses on this. There are a couple companies. One is Mood Sonic, who actually sits on our advisory board for the sound concept that focuses on delivering soundscapes from a natural sound source perspective. There's a new company that I've heard about called Spatial, who I'm trying to
00:26:05
Speaker
learn more about in the coming weeks that is providing a similar solution and has worked with some hospitals in North America to create spaces for respite for nurses and people who need a moment of Zen or peace or tranquility to continue their daily work.
Integrating Natural Soundscapes
00:26:23
Speaker
Yeah, I've certainly used it and created a sort of vitamin nature space in the central business district of London called Canary Wharf. We did that for a month.
00:26:35
Speaker
It was definitely part of what we call perhaps a multi-sensory design strategy along with the robot therapy and lights and various other things. But I found it was all too easy to just accept that a Spotify playlist of English bird songs as we were in England would be enough. English countryside bird song. I felt that there was more to be done in terms of perhaps matching place, season,
00:27:03
Speaker
and the situation, the desired emotional response. And so I could see how those type of services could perhaps add that extra layer of detail, right? Because it's so
00:27:15
Speaker
it's it's such a delicate balance between, you know, the occasional sort of countryside soundtrack with with cows moving in the background. And come on, I think there's more that we can do. So I guess that's the next level, right is working with in that case, outsourcing it to effectively a professional would be like sort of the great sound playlists. And then they provide
00:27:42
Speaker
It's a lot more complicated than that. In reality, it's understanding how – well, let me start from here. The ear is not dumb. The ear knows when it's in an office and crickets are playing from a Sonos speaker in the corner.
00:27:59
Speaker
The brain understands that when it is fully and truly immersed in an environment, only then can it naturally respond and react to it the way that we would if we were there in reality. So audio engineers, of which I actually am not
00:28:16
Speaker
One, I am an aspiring audio engineer. I'm more of an architectural acquisition. But audio engineers are really looking at this from the perspective of how do sounds really travel in the sound field and how can multiple loudspeakers and an array of loudspeakers help to create and elicit those environments.
00:28:35
Speaker
I've seen examples where in software they can create sound sources in an XYZ grid and just have them move around and not too dissimilar to going to the theater and listening to a Dolby Atmos system where you can pinpoint exactly where the sound is in the given cinema. So we're seeing that enter places like workplaces, hospitals, and in public areas where sound installations can better interact with humans and vice versa.
00:29:05
Speaker
I like that. I was hoping we'd get onto some of the more inspirational pieces. That's the next level clearly in terms of where you take that.
Outcomes of Good Workplace Acoustics
00:29:12
Speaker
So we've sort of touched on it a couple of times, but just to really spell it out then, in terms of how well positioned the sound concept, you know, the ultimate aim here, when you get all of this right, we've spoken quite a bit about what can go wrong and the tools and tricks that are available
00:29:33
Speaker
as you go in to try and resolve some of those issues. But the ultimate aim is when you describe what the wins are, are you talking about primarily productivity? Is it worker happiness? What are the big buckets of these sort of ideal results from you're starting a project, ending a project, and you've delivered X?
00:29:55
Speaker
It changes per project type. So in a typical workplace, yes, we would talk about workplace satisfaction. We would talk about productivity. We would talk about ability to collaborate. If there are more spaces, if there are more areas throughout a given office floor plate,
00:30:16
Speaker
where a person can interact with different types of acoustic environments to better support their work. There is a sense of fulfillment that we can draw from that. And indices indicating surveys that are indicating that noise is a top concern.
00:30:33
Speaker
are pointing to that, the lack of choice and the inability to be in a place where you can speak when you need to without worrying about other people hearing you or vice versa. You can speak when you need to and the people who need to hear you can hear you.
00:30:49
Speaker
That is the primary focus. That is something in the workplace environment that is a key outcome, absolutely. And especially now when we think about how do we return to that type of environment where you are looking someone directly in the eye from across a table and your voice doesn't have to go through a series of digital signal processing through
00:31:11
Speaker
whatever you can describe the software for this hybrid environment. I think there is a relearning that we will have to undertake when it comes to thinking about how we communicate in the workplace, for instance. And then that will ultimately describe the way that we address acoustics from the onset in design. Now, with places like health care and residential, we see noise as a concern as it relates to sleep. And with acoustics being a top
00:31:40
Speaker
contributor to sleep disturbance, it's important that we can see the key outcomes in things like fitness trackers and other types of technology that can measure and better assess our quality of sleep. And this is very important with healthcare where patient surveys that are administered, especially here in North America,
00:32:01
Speaker
indicate the performance of a hospital based on a patient's ability to sleep and spend their time recovering in some instances. The links between acoustic comfort and patient recovery are vast in many. It's actually where a lot of the research in acoustics and health and well-being derives from. There's many case studies that link those two together.
00:32:25
Speaker
Over time, as we see places like hospitals, senior living, outpatient facilities, adopting more of these health and well-being metrics into their design, the more we're going to see these uptakes in patient satisfaction surveys.
Impact of the Well Standard on Acoustics
00:32:42
Speaker
Listen, I'm going to be respectful of your time, but I feel like we could go on for a good while. I mean, certainly from my perspective as anything but a specialist in this, you know, the
00:32:52
Speaker
having the well-standard as a sort of marker.
00:32:58
Speaker
in the ground, able to get me to a minimal level of understanding and being able to at least have a vaguely informed conversation on this has just been a real game changer. And there's just obviously so much behind it and so much depth and detail. It's just such a fascinating subject. So congratulations on everything you've done so far. How can people reach out to you, connect with you, follow along, get involved?
Connect with Ethan Bordeaux
00:33:24
Speaker
You can find me on LinkedIn, of all places. I'm usually posting the latest updates with all of the outfits that I'm involved with there. And yeah, I'd be happy to reach out and connect in any of the DMs you're welcome to send me on that platform. Awesome, man. Put the links in the show notes. Thanks again. Thanks so much.