ABSTRACTA INVITES TO THE ACOUSTIC EXPERIENCE OF THE FUTURE DURING CLERKENWELL DESIGN WEEK (ENG)

At Clerkenwell Design Week, the UK’s leading design festival, which take place May 23-25 in London, Swedish acoustic design brand Abstracta will open their showroom at 3 Albemarle Way in Clerkenwell, London to showcase several of their acoustic solutions, from carefully designed screens and absorbents to innovative furniture where the acoustic function is integrated.

Abstracta has extensive experience in creating innovative solutions that both improve acoustics and add aesthetic and functional value.

”The acoustics are always the starting point for us, that’s what we’re experts at, but we find ways to reach out with it through new product categories and first-class design. How and where we apply our expertise does not matter, as long as we fulfill the purpose of the product. Therefore, we don’t have to limit ourselves or only work in a particular niche, but instead have a broad portfolio. We make a point out of having a multifaceted product segment so that we can provide great acoustics to not only the new era’s offices and co-working spaces, but to hotels, restaurants, universities, and many other types of environments as well”, says Linus Berglund, Marketing Director at Abstracta.

During Clerkenwell Design Week, visitors can take part in Abstracta’s vision for the acoustic experience of the future, and how the right solutions can enhance productivity, creativity, concentration and conversations in many different environments.

One of Abstracta’s most innovative and disruptive product is Zen Pod® – a silent room designed by award-winning Swedish designer Staffan Holm. Zen Pod is equipped with plenty of functions and features – both technical and design-wise. The basic idea is to offer a creative and acoustic oasis that elegantly blends into all environments characterized by meetings and mobility, such as hospitals, universities, and offices.

When Zen Pod was shown during Milan Design Week in April, it attracted a massive interest and curiosity from visitors

Zen Pod – a peaceful place you don’t want to leave
Zen Pod offers a peaceful, safe, and welcoming environment while being much more than just a quiet refuge where you can catch your breath. Thanks to the quiet but high-performance ventilation and warm, natural materials such as wood and wool textiles combined with glass, aluminum, and steel, Zen Pod is also a space to feel comfortable in. For designer Staffan Holm, it was important to create a room that felt inviting and not confined.

”Completely silent rooms can be quite unpleasant to be in. Zen Pod allows you to sense the surrounding environment without being disturbed by it. The room is quiet, not isolating”, says designer Staffan Holm.

Zen Pod is easy to assemble, easy to use, and designed to blend into the surrounding environment. The room’s sparse and harmonious design is influenced by Japanese interiors – which is clearly reflected in the clean lines and square composition. This expression can be further enhanced by adding an optional rib wall in beautiful oak to the glass wall. Zen Pod also has a dual acoustic function since the walls ensure that the sound is absorbed instead of bounced back – helping to improve the acoustics in the surroundings outside of the room as well. The technical solutions in Zen Pod are also state-of-the-art, with first-class video and sound from Sharp/NEC and BOSE.

”Our design and acoustic solution are timeless and we have not integrated any technology that risks becoming obsolete, so that the product can always keep up with the development and be combined with relevant technology”, says Linus Berglund.

Zen Pod is available in two versions: Essential and Advanced, and in three sizes.

Award-winning, multi-functional acoustic lighting
In Abstracta’s range of acoustic lighting solutions, we find the brand new lamp Moon, designed by Thomas Bernstrand and multiple award-winner Holly, designed by Hallgeir Homstvedt and Runa Klock.

Two often decisive factors for the atmosphere in a room are the soundscape and the lighting. In Moon and Holly, high-performance lighting and efficient acoustics are combined – the lamps are both eye-catching design objects and products that contributes to better acoustics in environments characterized by conversations and varying degrees of noise, which makes them perfect for restaurants, cafes, lobbies, and various office environments. Last year, Holly was named the winner of Mix Interiors’ prestigious Mixology Award in the category ”Product of the Year 2022: Lighting”. This year, Moon is a finalist for the same award.

Moon was born after two years of close collaboration between Thomas Bernstrand and Abstracta’s product developers. The result is an innovative product where the shape is not only used to create high-quality light but also to maximize the acoustic capacity. The housing consists of two acoustic felt blankets, with different properties, and thanks to the construction, the air inside the lamp is also used as a sound-absorbing material. In this way, the acoustic effect is very high while the material consumption is low, and thus also the weight of the lamp.

In Moon, designer Thomas Bernstrand has combined his long experience in lighting design with his interest in acoustics.

”I’ve given a lot of thought to outer space and the Moon and to the kind of vacuum that exists there. A place with light, yet utterly silent, By combining two classic lamp shapes – a globe and a cone hidden within the globe – I was able to create a spherical lamp that offers directed light”, says designer Thomas Bernstrand.

The lamp’s shape and generous scale mean that it effectively absorbs both high- and low-frequency ambient noise. The driver of the LED lighting is hidden inside the globe, while the luminaire is recessed into the lamp to provide a directed, glare-free light.

Moon is easy to install and can be arranged in many different ways: in clusters, in rows, or solitary. The acoustic properties vary depending on where and how it is placed in the room. If Moon is placed in a corner, it essentially absorbs the low-frequency bass sounds of conversations. If it is placed more centrally, it takes care of the high-frequency sounds.

The sound-absorbing felt surface is available in several colors and is partly made of polyester from recycled PET bottles. Like all products from Abstracta, Moon is covered by Zero Waste – Abstracta’s recycling program for end-of-life products.

With Holly, Homstvedt and Klock challenged preconceptions of how a lamp with acoustic properties should look. It is a sculptural and enigmatic lamp that plays with the contrasts between light, reflection and shadows. Holly is an aesthetic and functional entity in which acoustics and lighting are equally important. Holly strikes a perfect aesthetic balance between the two functions.