Abstract:

The paper’s background discusses the impact of the global 2020 pandemic on every part of our life, counting the educational sector, culminating in a worldwide shift from classroom to online learning. All types of learning, theoretical and practical, faced multiple obstacles from the instructor and the student’s perspectives, especially in their interior’s livings. A fundamental principle in learning processes is the eye communication between them, the instructor, and the student. While shifting online, opening video is no longer affordable prosperity for the majority of the students. Crowded or limited size homes interiors and the multiple family members in different educational levels and professions incapacitate the open camera and the mics most of the time. The result is an interruption of crucial communication that leads to the educational sessions’ losing orientation and continuousness.

The purpose of the current study explores the possible acoustical solutions to support the learning processes in the home’s interiors. The main target of the interior design is to find appropriate solutions for the inhabitants. The paper emphasizes the vital need for empirical attention to this topic in light of the growing worry over students’ focus, connectivity, engagement, and communication in the online environment, citing a lack of study.

The current study follows a qualitative and case study methodology that will lead this paper to the possible acoustical alternatives that may help the students and their instructors facing the online with open cameras without being embarrassed in front of their colleagues/students, especially for the trivial houses’ areas. By analyzing the acoustical treatment – materials and structures – and their positions to reduce the reflections and the exceed absorptions, creating an acoustical hub for each user (student or instructor), the optional practical solutions will give the users the required provisions for their lockdown phase.

As a result of this study, the multiple acoustical solutions, affordable for several interiors, enable the students and the instructors to maintain their privacy in a tight or finite space. Users will have alternative options in reasonable acoustical solutions to add them to any spaces based on the specific functions. The paper will enable more applied research to measure the impacts of utilizing interior acoustical solutions on students’ and instructors’ behavioral education processes.

Keywords:

Interior Acoustic Design, Interior Design, Acoustics, Pandemic Interiors.