What does fabric do in a hotel?
A hotel is a sequence of rooms with different jobs: a lobby that sets the tone on arrival, corridors that carry guests to quiet rooms, and function spaces that fill and empty in an evening. Fabric works across all of them. It brings texture and colour to large surfaces, it dresses windows, and it soaks up the echo of rooms full of stone, glass and timber.
In Acunic, that might mean the voluminous surface of Volumic Bubble across a lounge wall, the geometric relief of Cubic Giga on a lobby ceiling, or full curtains in Optic Structure or Accentric Crash. Getzner uses Optic Structure and Accentric Crash for its made-to-measure acunic curtain.
If a guest room needs blockout, ask AKA Acoustics before you specify.
Which fabric suits each space?
Lobby, lounge and bar
These are the rooms guests see first and judge from a distance, so larger reliefs keep their pattern across the space. Where the walls are glass or stone, the ceiling is often the surface left for fabric. Getzner makes its suspended acunic cloud in every fabric in the collection, with aluminium or solid oak frames, and ceiling sails in Acunic shows the options. Restaurants and bars have their own planning questions, set out in fabric for restaurants and bars.
Corridors
Corridors carry the strictest lining rules after the fire exits, and long walls show every joint in perspective, so plan the panel grid with care. Where luggage and trolleys brush past, compare abrasion ratings: Getzner's datasheets rate Acunic from 15,000 Martindale cycles for Accentric Soundwave to 90,000 for Cubic Mega.
Guest rooms
In a guest room, fabric is closest to the guest: a stretched headboard wall, a panel above a desk, full curtains at the window. Fabric wall panels bring a relief within reach, so judge its scale from a sample held at arm's length. Fabric shortens reverberation in the room, and sound from the room next door is a matter for the walls.
Ballrooms and function rooms
Large rooms need large areas of fabric. Getzner's acunic area is a panel curtain on a rail, mounted to the ceiling or suspended, which Getzner describes for event spaces and public areas; like the acunic curtain, it comes in Accentric Crash and Optic Structure. A ballroom may be classed as an assembly building (Class 9b), which the NCC defines to include buildings where people gather for social purposes, and the certifier decides.
What fire evidence does each location need?
The certifier assigns a class to each part of a hotel, and a hotel often has several. The NCC classes the residential part of a hotel as Class 3 (clause A6G4(2)(b)). A dining room or bar that is not an assembly building is Class 6 (A6G7(2)(b)), while a hotel bar with live entertainment or a dance floor counts as an assembly building, Class 9b. New South Wales varies these definitions and classes a hotel's dining rooms and bars as Class 6 (NSW A6G7), so confirm the class of each space with the certifier.
The table shows the Group Numbers that NCC Table S7C4 allows for wall and ceiling linings; for the accommodation floors of a hotel, read the two Class 2 or 3 rows.
Group Numbers allowed for wall and ceiling linings, NCC Table S7C4
NCC 2025 Volume One, Specification 7, Table S7C4: the Group Numbers permitted for wall (W) and ceiling (C) linings in the building classes these articles discuss. The rows are unchanged from NCC 2022. Read each row with the edition adopted in the project's state and the table notes.
"Sprinklered" means a building fitted with a sprinkler system complying with Specification 17, other than a FPAA101D or FPAA101H system (Table S7C4, note 1).
"Specific areas" (Table S7C4, note 2) are a sole-occupancy unit in a Class 2 or 3 building; an open-plan office (Class 5) or shop (Class 6) whose minimum floor dimension is more than five times its floor-to-ceiling height; a patient care area in a Class 9a health-care building; an auditorium in a Class 9b theatre or hall; a classroom in a Class 9b school; and a resident use area in a Class 9c building.
In a building that is not sprinklered, clause S7C4(1) also requires a smoke growth rate index of not more than 100 or an average specific extinction area of less than 250 m²/kg.
Whether a fabric wall panel or ceiling sail is a lining or an attachment is decided by the building certifier.
In those rows, a guest room is a "specific area" (a sole-occupancy unit), so its linings may be Group 1, 2 or 3. Public corridors need Group 1 or 2 without sprinklers, and Group 1, 2 or 3 with them. In a building without sprinklers, a lining must also meet a smoke limit under clause S7C4(1), which how Group Numbers work explains.
Clause C2D11 and Specification 7 have the same numbers in NCC 2022 and NCC 2025. NCC 2025 applies in the ACT, Victoria and Western Australia, the ACT and Western Australia with 12-month transition periods. New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania adopt it on 1 May 2027, and the Northern Territory has not adopted it.
The next table gives the Group Number of each Acunic article. In AKA Acoustics' Technical Product Summary (Version A, October 2024), Cubic Pico, Accentric Crash, Accentric Crinkle, Accentric Soundwave and Optic Braid are Group 1. The others, including Optic Structure and Volumic Weave, are Group 2.
Australian fire Group Numbers
Curtains are treated differently. Clause C2D11(3)(m)(i) exempts "a curtain, blind, or similar decor, other than a proscenium curtain required by Specification 32". In New South Wales, curtains in any part of a Class 9b entertainment venue open to the public need a Flammability Index of not more than 6, tested to AS 1530.2, so ask the certifier whether a ballroom or function room forms part of one. For a curtain in such a space, ask AKA Acoustics before you specify. Whether curtains need a fire rating covers the exemption and its exceptions.
How do you make a lobby or ballroom quieter with fabric?
A large room becomes calmer when it has enough absorbing surface to shorten reverberation. Fabric adds that surface as ceiling sails, stretched wall panels and full curtains. AS/NZS 2107:2016 recommends design sound levels and reverberation times for building interiors, and Standards Australia lists it as Pending Revision; ask an acoustic consultant to set the target for each room.
For curtains, Getzner's datasheet of 14 March 2024 rates Optic Structure αw 0.90 (class A) hung as a gathered curtain with 100 per cent extra fabric at a median 150 mm from the wall (Type G-150), measured to DIN EN ISO 354 and rated to DIN EN ISO 11654. Acoustic curtains: fullness, air gap and fabric explains how to plan that construction.
For ceilings, a suspended single-sided Cubic Pico panel of 1.2 x 1.5 m measured 1.14 Sabins per panel at 1000 Hz and 1.64 at 5000 Hz, its highest value, tested to AS ISO 354:2006 by Canterbury Acoustic Testing Services in Christchurch (report 2026-316.3).
Absorption works inside the room. Keeping sound from passing between guest rooms, or from a ballroom into a corridor, is the work of the walls, floors and doors, as absorption and sound insulation explains.
What do hotel operators need for care and replacement?
Care is set per article, so housekeeping needs the datasheet for each fabric. The Cubic fabrics are non-washable, and the others allow a 40 °C delicates cycle. For every article, surface dirt is patted off or vacuumed, and a mark is patted with a damp cloth, never rubbed. For curtains that will be taken down and washed, choose from the washable articles.
Plan for replacement at the start. A custom colour is made to order, so a brand colour is best ordered with spare fabric for later repairs. Getzner's datasheets note that technical specifications may differ for dyed fabric, so the performance of a custom colour is confirmed for each order. Custom colour, dyeing and UV printing covers how to plan one.
Where can you see Acunic in a comparable space?
Getzner's published projects include spaces that hotels also have.
At the Health Campus in Bludenz, an event space in a historic attic is used for meetings, lectures and yoga. Getzner reports that pronounced reverberation had impaired speech intelligibility, and that textile ceiling elements and acoustic curtains reduced the reverberation time. Getzner names the fabric as Cubic Giga, in its acunic frame system with timber frames (mitiska wäger architekten, 2025).
At Getzner Textil's own offices in the listed Alte Weberei building in Bludenz, Cubic Pico forms ceiling sails and skylight cladding in office spaces and a lounge area (architektur.terminal Dieter Klammer, 2018).
At Sparkasse Götzis, a bank's customer area and consulting room, Cubic Giga covers the ceiling luminaires (Hassler Architektur, 2025).
