What can a fabric divider do in an open room?
A fabric divider gives an open floor a soft wall that can be seen from both sides. It marks out a meeting corner, a row of desks or a lounge without building anything, and it brings texture to the middle of the room, where people stand and talk, instead of leaving all the absorption on the perimeter. In an open-plan office for Getzner Werkstoffe in Munich, Getzner Textil used Cubic Pico, dyed orange, as an acunic wall, which it describes as absorbing sound and giving visual privacy.
Acoustically, a divider adds absorbing fabric to the room and shortens reverberation. Getzner describes its acunic wall the same way: a freestanding room divider that reduces reverberation and creates structured zones without structural work. Getzner's dividers, desk screens and towers are on the partitions and freestanding elements page.
How do dividers and walls share the work?
A freestanding divider works on the sound within the open room. A divider is an absorber, and an absorber controls reverberation within a space, while blocking sound between spaces is the work of sound insulation. In the Australian Building Codes Board's sound handbook, limiting sound transmission through a construction or building element is sound insulation, which is a different property from absorption. Where privacy matters, plan an enclosed room, and use dividers for zoning and absorption, as how absorption and sound insulation differ explains.
How is a freestanding element rated?
A divider or tower stands in the room as an object, so a laboratory rates it as an object. The American test method ASTM C423 treats an object, with an office screen as its example, separately from a specimen of absorptive material, such as ceiling tile, whose absorption coefficients are measured. The laboratory that tested Acunic reported its towers in this way, as space absorbers, in Sabins per tower at each frequency band, and a wall panel's NRC is read in its own unit; reading NRC, αw and Sabins explains each measure.
Canterbury Acoustic Testing Services in Christchurch tested four towers, 0.4 x 0.4 x 1.5 m, wrapped in Cubic Pico. Empty, each tower measured 1.13 Sabins at 500 Hz and its highest value, 1.86 Sabins, at 5000 Hz (AS ISO 354:2006, Canterbury Acoustic Testing Services report 2026-316.2). With two R2.6 batts inside, each tower measured 1.91 to 2.04 Sabins from 500 to 2000 Hz and its highest value, 2.34 Sabins, at 5000 Hz (AS ISO 354:2006, report 2026-316.2).
At 500 Hz, the batts took each tower from 1.13 to 2.01 Sabins (AS ISO 354:2006, report 2026-316.2). Compare Sabins at the same frequency band: the highest values for both towers sit at 5000 Hz, so read the middle frequencies band by band. The two tower rows in the table show what the infill did, beside the other Cubic Pico constructions AKA Acoustics has had tested.
Tested with Cubic Pico
What about divider curtains, freestanding walls and desk screens?
Getzner Textil documents a room divider, a desk divider, a freestanding tower and a panel curtain that can hang within a space, all available in every fabric of the collection except where noted.
- The acunic wall is a room divider in 1220 mm widths at 1500, 1800 or 2000 mm high, on aluminium flat feet, used alone or as a continuous run, with a different fabric or colour possible on each face.
- The acunic panel is a desk divider fixed with table clamps, 1600 to 2000 mm wide and 420 or 620 mm high, which Getzner says also works as a pinboard.
- The acunic tower is a freestanding column of 2030 x 370 x 370 mm on a 400 x 400 mm black metal base plate.
- The acunic area is a panel curtain for large surfaces, on a ceiling-mounted or suspended rail, made in two fabrics, Accentric Crash and Optic Structure.
The towers tested in Christchurch are a different size from Getzner's acunic tower. The wall, panel and tower also offer Getzner's PLUS option with absorber inserts.
A curtain can divide a room too. Getzner's curtain ratings were measured with the curtain a median 150 mm from a wall, so for a curtain hung free across a space, ask AKA Acoustics. Curtains in general are covered in fullness and air gap in acoustic curtains and on the Acunic curtains page.
What about stability, cleaning and fire evidence?
A freestanding element needs a base that suits its height and the traffic around it. Getzner's systems stand on their own feet, plate or clamps; for a custom divider, the maker designs the base.
Cleaning follows the fabric. Cubic Pico is non-washable: its datasheet says surface dirt comes off by carefully patting or vacuuming, or by patting with a damp cloth without rubbing. Cleaning architectural fabric covers the other fabrics. A dyed divider, like the orange Munich dividers, has its performance confirmed for each order, because Getzner's datasheets say technical specifications may differ for dyed fabric.
How the NCC's fire hazard property rules apply to a freestanding divider in a particular building is the building certifier's decision. Give the certifier the Group Number of the fabric from AKA Acoustics' Technical Product Summary (Version A, October 2024). Cubic Pico is Group 1 (Technical Product Summary), and what Group Numbers mean explains what the certifier looks for.
