With the pandemic winding down, the A&D community looks forward to resuming global travel. Milan in particular is a destination for designers seeking inspiration. This creative city is also home to Snowsound’s USA’s Italian headquarters. Snowsound’s award-winning products are developed at Caimi Lab just outside Milan.
Today, the stakes are higher than ever for designers specifying acoustical products. Indoor commercial spaces are finally opening up for business, and owner/operators in all real estate sectors need to ensure acoustical comfort to stay competitive. The scientists at Snowsound’s Milan headquarters are committed to discovering and delivering the most sophisticated acoustic solutions in the world.
Snowsound’s R&D team is focused on advancing the science of sound. Open Lab is a non-profit facility operated by Caimi. Universities, research institutes, foundations and organizations are all invited to use Open Lab free of charge. They study and research sound and acoustics to develop new solutions that enhance people’s health and psychophysical well-being.
Open Lab’s open door policy paves the way for collaboration. Since the priority is science first—and then commerce—the drive for innovation enables Snowsound to be a leader in the acoustics space. Open Lab programming includes educational courses; a training camp for architects, schools and universities; acoustics seminars and workshops on sound, material and space design.
Open Lab comprises several state-of-the-art facilities including the Super Nova Lab where scientists investigate perceptual capacities of humans in a controlled environment. The Super Nova Lab’s completely isolated test chamber has an outer layer formed by 90 tons of special concrete, an intermediate layer consisting of a Faraday cage and an inner layer made of semi-anechoic insulating material containing 1,301 sound-absorbing elements.
Open Lab is also equipped with a Rev Lab (a reverberating room with asymmetrical walls that’s designed to test and measure sound-absorbing materials) and a Micromax Lab dedicated to the study of the microstructures of materials. Dimensional, visual, acoustic and structural analysis and control are performed in the Micromax Lab.
In Open Lab’s Habitat Lab, scientists bring noise and sound analysis out into the real world by producing acoustic patterns that can be modified in real time, and by providing direct visualizations of sound waves.
The Design Lab facility is dedicated to the final design stage of applied research projects. It enables academic and applied research scientists to build models and prototypes of their ideas and products, also through the use of 3D technologies, before they go into production.
Through their research into acoustics and sound-absorbing panels at Open Lab, Snowsound’s R&D team has produced breakthroughs in acoustic comfort for every space and multiple verticals where architects and designers practice. Snowsound’s exclusive patented technology, based on sound absorbing material with variable densities, enables selective absorption at various frequencies for optimal room acoustics.
One commercial success developed at Snowsound’s Italian headquarters is Snowsound-Fiber—a patented textile fiber with acoustic sound absorbing properties. Like all Snowsound products, it artfully blends Italian style with performance for acoustically superior spaces that surpass the needs of designer clients and their end users. Learn more here about Snowsound’s patented technology.
