Akustisk kontroll av framtidens kontor : Summit Flexiwall

Sammanfattning: The project presented in this report was conducted by Hans Iverlund and was the final thesis of the Study programme in innovation and design engineering at Karlstad University. The project included 22,5 ECTS credits. Parts of the project were carried out in collaboration with Robin Westlund, who also did his final thesis of the Study programme in innovation and design engineering. The project was conducted in collaboration with Moelven Eurowand AB, which is a company that manufactures, sells and installs room solutions consisting of wall systems, door portals and some furniture, mainly for offices. Supervisor from Moelven Eurowand AB was Pernilla Irewährn, tutor from Karlstad University was Monica Jakobsson and examiner for the project was Professor Fredrik Thuvander. Moelven Eurowand AB wished to get better insight for how the future office would look and operate, so that they could develop their future products in the right direction. To gain that insight, the project began with extensive research, consisting of literature studies, field studies and interviews with people that work in offices. Parameters that were identified as important for the future of office were the ability of control over the surroundings and the need for acoustical and visual privacy and social interaction with other people. This resulted in a vision for the future that was visualized with a continuously variable dimmer switch that controls the acoustic environment and the visual interaction with other people in the area in which the individual office employee is located. The dimmer switch became the aim for the development of a product that would fit into this vision for the future. The product development was carried out using a list of demands, idea generation and a systematic generation of concepts. The product that was developed was called Summit Flexiwall, and was a flexible panel-wall solution that enabled control of the acoustic environment and the amount of social interaction. The product may serve several different functions in an office environment.