Conference halls · HUB · REV 2026-10-06
Conference halls
A conference room is judged by a sentence that can be understood: in the seat, on the microphone, and by the participant who is not in the room. Stone on the table does not do that.
What this gate is
The subject of the gate is speech intelligibility and what carries it: the microphone, the display, the hybrid participant, and isolation from the next room. STI as in IEC 60268-16 is a way to discuss intelligibility. RT60 as in ISO 3382-1 describes how energy remains, not whether the meeting succeeded. A handsome boardroom in which a sentence cannot be understood has failed.
Isolation between adjacent or divisible rooms is not a laboratory figure stuck to a partition. The ceiling void, the floor, and the doors open a flanking path. This gate issues no STC, no fire classification, and no certificate for a conferencing system. The local code remains the reference for egress and fire.
What is published now
Conference hall design
Speech, microphones, displays, the hybrid end, and isolation. Not a furniture plan standing alone.
Criteria that are referred to, not copied
IEC 60268-16 for STI, and ISO 3382-1 for the room measurement method when it applies. The acceptance score is written in the brief.
Isolation as a building detail
Partition, ceiling, floor, and door are one path. A single product figure does not describe the room.
What the gate does not do
No microphone catalogue, no city page for convention centres, and no claim of a certificate.
When to open this gate
Speech is the purpose
Meetings, interpretation, or a decision that must be heard as it was said.
Rooms that operate together
When a hall is divided or two rooms sit side by side and speech must not cross.
Wrong scope
Unamplified drama, a cinema, or an interior that stops at the table and the marble: that is not this gate's scope.
How to read the subject
- 01
Write down who must understand the sentence: the person in the last seat, the interpreter, and the remote participant.
- 02
Tie the microphone to the room. A tall ceiling and a distant ceiling microphone are not an intelligibility plan.
- 03
Draw the display from viewing distance and glare, not from the size of a logo on the wall.
- 04
Close the isolation path: wall, void above, floor, and door. Then name the verification method in the brief. Do not copy a laboratory figure to the site.
What this gate does not do
A room for photography
A handsome finish that cannot be understood is a functional failure, not a finishes phase that is merely incomplete.
An operable wall with no seal
The product name does not isolate. The path over it and under it decides what the neighbour hears.
Wrong scope
The gate does not design a Line Array for a stadium, does not grant a certificate for a meeting system, and does not replace the local fire code.
Questions designers and owners ask
Why does a handsome room fail?
Because the programme is speech. If RT60, HVAC noise, or a distant microphone buries the sentence, the room has not done its job, however expensive the finish.
Is STI the same thing as RT60?
No. RT60 is how long energy remains, and its measurement is discussed through ISO 3382-1. STI describes speech-modulation transfer under IEC 60268-16. Both may enter the brief. Neither replaces the other.
What does the hybrid participant need from the room?
A microphone send that is not the room's loudspeaker mix, and a room that does not return their own voice as echo. A camera added to a room that cannot be understood does not make a hybrid meeting.
Is a product isolation figure the isolation of the two rooms?
No. This page states no STC as a fact. Field performance is usually lower because of flanking, openings, and services. The whole detail is the design.
When do I open the theatre gate instead?
When the ask is drama or music and a stage-to-Auditorium relationship, not a meeting that must be understood on a microphone and a display. The scopes do not swap by name.
Technical sources
- IEC 60268-16
The reference for objective rating of speech intelligibility by STI. This gate does not replace the standard and does not set the project's pass mark.
- ISO 3382-1
The method for measuring room parameters in performance spaces. Using it in a meeting room is stated in the brief if the scope differs. The page does not replace the document.
- The building, fire, and egress code adopted by the project
Occupancy, exits, and the fire classification of finishes. The gate names no city and does not carry a product classification into a quotation.
Last editorial review: 2026-10-06. Review means the text was checked, not that a project was measured.
Turn the question into a brief
A study starts from room volume, use, and existing condition, not from a product name. Fill the brief and copy it.
Project study form