THE LOCAL AND INDIVIDUAL IS PIVOTAL	03/07/2009
	A new domicile building on the wharf Langelinie has been planned in cooperation with acoustic engineers and lighting architects in order to give each employee the most optimal sound and lighting conditions. Light as well as sound are very important to the individual’s total experience of the indoor climate. The quality of a room’s noise and light cannot be measured on a general level. This has to be based on the individual, local experience. Therefore, lighting architects and acoustic engineers have participated early in the competition phase, when the new domicile building on the wharf Langelinie in Copenhagen was to be described. Claus Møller Petersen, who is a civil engineer at Grontmij | Carl Bro’s department of acoustics, and Merete Madsen, lighting architect and chief consultant, explain that it is now possible to calculate how the individual employee experiences light and sound already before a building is constructed, as the acoustics and light of a room can be simulated and tested in advance. ”This way, you can find out what would be expedient and which problems you will attempt to avoid for the individual employee. We have for example done this in the competition about the new domicile building that is to be constructed on the wharf Langelinie in Copenhagen,” says Claus Møller Petersen. ”In the Langelinie competition as well as in general, we look at the acoustic needs of the individual. Often, employees have very different tasks and needs. For example, a secretary and a researcher can sit right next to each other in a landscaped office, but due to their tasks, they have very different needs regarding noise reduction. Therefore, we go in and optimize the sound conditions in accordance with the fields of application and work of the individual employees.” When lighting is like redecorating ”As with acoustics, the local lighting and the individual experience are the most important factors of the lighting, combined with the need for variation,” explains Merete Madsen. ”Partly because every employee has very individual viewing needs, and partly because a room with the same lighting everywhere results in what seems like dull overcast weather. When we go in and change the lighting, the effect can be so significant that it feels as if we have redecorated. Therefore, proper and correct lighting is of great significance to the welfare and quality of life at a workplace.”