Sonagining the workspace : a user-centric workshop

The Laboratoire d'Expériences du Bureau (LEB) is designed as an experimental, educational and experiential space for workspace designers. Its purpose is to provide a better understanding of the implications of design choices on the likely sound experience of people at work. Equipped with a set of mobile acoustic devices, an sound ambience generator software and a multi-channel sound system, it reproduces a range of sound phenomena and immerses listeners in a range of sound ambiences in a work situation. Users are helped to gradually become aware, through sound experience, of the implications of their design choices. The process is part of a research approach to the design of sound devices based on the ideation of new paradigms and the modeling of hypothesis. This article intends to present the key concepts of the project, how it differs from other comparable approaches, its state of progress as well as the limits and difficulties encountered.