If you live in an apartment, you may unintentionally know the details of your neighbor's life by overhearing conversations through your shared walls. Or you keep awake when the dog that lives in the apartment above decides to take a walk in the middle of the night. If so, you may live in an apartment with inadequate sound insulation in its walls and/or slabs. As cities grow increasingly dense and builders seek to increase their profit margins, it is not uncommon for acoustic comfort to be overlooked in many architectural projects. When the resulting noise is excessive or unwanted, it impacts the human body, the mind, and daily activities. While not all spaces need to seal all types of sound, creating spaces with an adequate degree of soundproofing improves the quality of life of all users.
.jpg?1566868902 "Cortesia de Hunter Douglas Architectural")
Sound insulation is the ability to soundproof an environment in relation to its exterior. That is, it can be used to "cover" noise coming in from the street or prevent sounds generated inside the space from "seeping" outwards. This process relies on the ability of surfaces to create barriers, preventing noise from passing from one environment to another. To achieve an acoustically isolated environment, sound waves must be completely reflected or absorbed by a room's material surfaces without emitting any sound on the other side.
