Panasonic Holdings and Pasona Nippon Soumu Win the 2025 Environmental Design Award from the Institute of Noise Control Engineering of Japan for Office Biophilic Sound Design

Panasonic Holdings Corporation (Panasonic HD) and Pasona Nippon Soumu Inc. (Pasona Nippon Soumu) announced that their joint initiative, "Development of Biophilic Sound Design in Offices and its Deployment to Actual Offices," has won the 2025 Environmental Design Award from the Institute of Noise Control Engineering of Japan.

This initiative scientifically verified the impact of different types of natural sounds on people, in addition to visual elements such as plants. Furthermore, the award highly evaluated the implementation of research findings into actual office spaces and the execution of long-term effectiveness verification.

In recent years, "biophilic design" has attracted attention from the perspective of improving the quality of office environments and enhancing well-being. However, most conventional efforts have focused on visual elements like plants, and space designs combining auditory elements like natural sounds have not been sufficiently verified.

Against this background, the two companies launched a joint research project in 2020 to verify the human impact of biophilic spaces combining plants with high-resolution natural sounds. The project utilizes the acoustic technology of Panasonic's premium audio brand "Technics." To clarify the types and volume levels of natural sounds suitable for biophilic spaces, the companies conducted psychological impression evaluations simulating office environments in 2021. This research was performed in cooperation with Associate Professor Sohei Tsujimura (currently at Nihon University College of Engineering; affiliated with Ibaraki University at the time of the study) to analyze the impact of various natural sounds.

Furthermore, based on laboratory findings, a biophilic space balancing visual and auditory senses was introduced into actual offices for long-term effectiveness verification. The results confirmed that an integrated design combining both visual and auditory elements is crucial. The combination of these elements continuously contributes to improving the comfort and well-being of office workers.

Both companies will continue to leverage the findings from this research to advance study and implementation of spatial design combining natural sounds and plants. Through these efforts, they aim to contribute to improving the quality of working environments and realizing the well-being of workers.