Human + Nature
Habitat Soundscaping
Habitat Soundscaping mitigates the distractions of human speech by combining nature sounds with real water features and virtual displays of serene landscapes, to create an immersive multi-sensory experience in the workplace. By bringing together natural sounds with complementary visual elements, Habitat Soundscaping enables an environment that improves collaboration and focus, promotes personal wellbeing and increases productivity.
Hearing is a primordial sense that humans can’t “turn off”, which is why the acoustics of open office spaces are so distracting. Humans are hardwired to listen for speech, and open office design has the unintended consequence of interfering with cognitive tasks like reading, reasoning, and accessing working memory. Natural sounds, on the other hand, have a beneficial effect. Water, in particular, simultaneously makes human speech unintelligible and improves cognitive functioning. Habitat Soundscaping introduces natural sounds that dynamically adapt to the changing acoustics of the open office.
To learn more about Habitat Soundscaping, please read my LinkedIn article: "Designing the Experiential Workplace"
Open Mesh waterfall
Waterfalls
Habitat offers several different types of waterfalls: Open Mesh, Enclosed and Open Glass. Each of these installations provide its own benefits and allows the customer to choose the best solution for their specific environment. Our design team collaborated with several waterfall manufacturers in order to produce the three water feature options.
4K Digital Window installation
Digital Windows
For customers who's environments don't support a real water feature, high-resolution digital displays can be used to supplement Habitat's ambient water sounds. The content is either created by, or highly-edited by, our design team. In addition to video content, we’ve developed computer-generated, environmentally responsive content. www.Habitat.Plantronics.com
Habitat Ambient Audio Hardware
The Habitat system consists of an audio processor, speakers (pendent or flush-mount), and distraction sensors (specially designed pendent or flush-mount microphones). These work in conjunction with physical waterfalls and digital video installations to provide a natural soundtrack which dynamically adapts to an environment’s conditions (noise level and type, room utilization/population, time-of-day, etc.).
Web-based configuration and management tool
Habitat Control Panel
This cloud-connected web app allows for installation, configuration and management of the Habitat system all from one pane of glass. Audio tuning, settings and personalization are all accessible to the installer, facilities manager and/or Plantronics client manager. Our team designed this tool with support from Plantronics' own internal dev resources.
Habitat.Plantronics.com commercial site
Habitat Website
Our team designed the initial launch website, and creative-directed the final commercial site. The core mission of the site was to communicate the benefits of the product and to describe Biophilia, the philosophy behind development of Habitat.
Conceptual rendering
Trade Show Booth Design
Our team collaborated with the Plantronics/Poly marketing team and an outside agency to design the first Habitat trade show booth. The challenge was to convey the benefits of the product in an entirely artificial environment - we weren’t able to use the real system, so we relied on immersive VR to place the participant in a more realistic scenario.
Final booth in situ
In the Booth
The final solution truly served as an oasis in a frenetic trade show environment and provided a representative product experience. The goal of the booth was to drive potential customers to one of our Habitat experience centers in the US and Europe, where they could experience the real system firsthand.
My team’s role: Vision-setting, Audio Design, Content Creation, Interaction Design, Visual Design, prototyping, small-batch production coordination, content/technical writing, usability testing, trade show booth design, website design/development, brochure design, developer liaising/collaboration
My role: Creative Direction / Team Leadership