Interaction between annoyance, indoor noise levels and acoustic classification of buildings

Assessment of annoyance "at home" from environmental noises has been widely investigated so far and the ISO/TS 15666:2021 was developed to lead the socio-acoustic surveys. On the other hand, the rating of buildings' acoustical performance considering also the indoor noises, has been also well concerned in building acoustics and the studies have ended up with the ISO/TS 19488:2021 covering the acoustic classification system for buildings. Basically the rating system needs to be supported by the subjective tests in the field or in laboratories, to acquire data about the annoyance/disturbance or satisfaction of residents. If the target is to design the healthy, comfortable and sustainable acoustical environment, both technical standards might be harmonized in the future. In this paper, based on the dose/response relationships with respect to the indoor noise levels, an approach is proposed to translate the acoustic classes proposed in ISO/TS 19488, into the annoyance boundaries in terms of different scales (verbal/numerical and the HA% ) referred in ISO/TS 15666. The results from the previous laboratory and field studies conducted by the authors, have been used for verification of this approach.