---
title: "Rooms and buildings"
description: "Sound inside rooms and through buildings: room-acoustic measurement and prediction (ISO 3382, EN 12354-6), and sound insulation measured in the field and the laboratory and predicted with EN 12354."
---

This section covers sound in the built environment, and it splits along a
natural line: what happens **inside** one room, and what passes **between**
rooms. Inside a room, the governing quantity is absorption: it sets the
reverberation time and the clarity that room acoustics measures (ISO 3382)
and predicts (Sabine and its refinements, EN 12354-6), while the background
noise the room settles into is rated against criterion curves
(ANSI/ASA S12.2). Between rooms, the governing quantity is insulation: how much
airborne and impact sound a partition and its flanking paths transmit, measured
in the field (ISO 16283) or the laboratory (ISO 10140) and predicted from
element data (EN 12354).

Both halves consume coefficients measured elsewhere: the
[Materials and surfaces](/phonometry/guides/sections/materials-surfaces/)
section characterises the absorption, impedance and scattering data that the
room and insulation predictions here rely on.

Start with [Room Acoustics](/phonometry/guides/room-acoustics/): the impulse
response it acquires and the parameters it derives are the vocabulary the rest
of the section speaks. If your interest is insulation, read
[Field Insulation Measurement and Ratings](/phonometry/guides/insulation-field/)
next; if it is design-stage prediction, go to
[Reverberation-time prediction (Sabine, Eyring, Arau)](/phonometry/guides/reverberation-prediction/)
and [Predicting Sound Insulation (EN 12354)](/phonometry/guides/insulation-prediction/).

## [Room acoustics](/phonometry/guides/sections/room-acoustics/)

The sound field inside a single room: measured from an impulse response, rated
against criterion curves, and predicted from volume and absorption.

- [Room Acoustics](/phonometry/guides/room-acoustics/): impulse-response
  acquisition (ISO 18233), room parameters (ISO 3382-1/2), open-plan speech
  metrics (ISO 3382-3) and reverberation-room absorption (ISO 354).
- [Room-noise criteria (NC / RC Mark II)](/phonometry/guides/room-noise/): the
  ANSI/ASA S12.2-2019 room-noise ratings with their spectral tags.
- [Reverberation-time prediction (Sabine, Eyring, Arau)](/phonometry/guides/reverberation-prediction/):
  Sabine, Eyring, Millington-Sette, Fitzroy and Arau-Puchades models with the
  air-absorption term.
- [Sound absorption in enclosed spaces (EN 12354-6)](/phonometry/guides/enclosed-space-absorption/):
  the normative prediction of a room's total equivalent absorption area and
  reverberation time.

## [Sound insulation](/phonometry/guides/sections/sound-insulation/)

Airborne and impact insulation: measured in the building, characterised in the
laboratory, and predicted from element data.

- [Field Insulation Measurement and Ratings](/phonometry/guides/insulation-field/):
  ISO 16283-1/2/3 field measurement, ISO 717-1/2 weighted ratings,
  ISO 12999-1 uncertainty and the ISO 10052 survey method.
- [Laboratory Insulation Measurement](/phonometry/guides/insulation-lab/):
  ISO 10140 laboratory characterisation, insulation by intensity (ISO 15186),
  floor-covering improvement (ISO 16251-1) and flanking (ISO 10848).
- [Predicting Sound Insulation (EN 12354)](/phonometry/guides/insulation-prediction/):
  airborne and impact flanking transmission (EN 12354-1/2), façade insulation
  and outdoor radiation (EN 12354-3/4).
- [Dynamic stiffness of resilient materials (EN 29052-1)](/phonometry/guides/dynamic-stiffness/):
  the load-plate resonance measurement behind every floating-floor prediction.
