This is one room of a larger project. The full programme, the four-zone strategy and the reason the client lost no trading days are covered on the parent case study: Sleepmax corporate office fit-out. This page covers only what was specific to the boardroom.
The brief for this room
A boardroom on an open floor plate has two jobs that pull against each other. It has to feel connected to the business — glass, daylight, visible activity — and it has to be genuinely confidential, because the conversations that happen in it are the reason it exists. Most offices resolve that by building a glass box and then discovering you can hear it from the corridor.
- 420 sq ft, 24 ft × 17 ft 6 in, on the internal edge of the floor plate.
- Fourteen seats at a single table, with room to walk behind a seated person on both long sides.
- Full video-conference capability — an 85 in display, ceiling microphones, a horizon camera.
- Speech privacy from the adjacent corridor and the open workspace beyond it.
- Built as zone three, with zones one and two already handed back and occupied.
The constraints
| Constraint | What it ruled out | What we did instead |
|---|---|---|
| Occupied adjacent zones | Daytime demolition and core drilling | All noisy scope in after-hours windows, with sealed dust barriers to the live zones |
| Goods lift car 1,100 × 2,000 mm | A single-piece 14-seat table top | Marble table in three slabs with concealed mechanical joints, sized to the lift car |
| Glass partitions on two sides | Meeting the acoustic brief with single glazing | 48 dB double-glazed system, full height to slab, with acoustic seals at head and base |
| Confidentiality plus daylight | Solid walls or permanent frosting | Switchable privacy film on both glazed elevations, controlled from the room |
| Hard surfaces — glass, stone, display | An untreated ceiling | Acoustic raft over the table plus carpet tile, taking reverberation to about 0.5 seconds |
Design and build under one accountable roof
What we did
- Take the partitions to the slabAcoustic performance in a glass meeting room is decided above the ceiling, not below it. Partitions run full height to the structural slab with an acoustically sealed head detail. A 48 dB partition that stops at the ceiling grid performs like a 30 dB one.
- Specify the table to the lift, then to the designThe goods lift car set the maximum slab dimension. The table is three marble sections on a concealed steel substructure with mechanical joints tightened from below — the joint lines fall on the seating rhythm so they read as deliberate.
- Use switchable film instead of blindsBlinds in a boardroom collect dust, break, and always end up half-raised. Switchable privacy film goes from clear to opaque on a wall switch with no moving parts and no fabric.
- Put the acoustic work in the ceilingA suspended acoustic raft directly over the table absorbs the first ceiling reflection, which is the one that most degrades speech intelligibility for the people at the far end. The rest of the ceiling stays as an accessible grid for sprinkler and detector access.
- Integrate the AV before the ceiling closedDisplay position, ceiling microphone array, camera height and cable routes were all fixed before the ceiling design was finalised — the same sequencing rule that governed the whole project.
- Power and data in the tableA flush cable management spine down the table centre with power, HDMI and data at four positions, fed through the steel substructure and a floor box, so no cable is visible above the surface.
Materials and specification
| Element | Specification | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|
| Partitions | Double-glazed 12 mm + 12 mm laminated, 48 dB rated, full height to slab, aluminium framing | The only reliable way to get confidentiality out of a glass room |
| Privacy | Switchable PDLC film on both glazed elevations, wall-switched | No fabric, no dust, no mechanism; instant and total |
| Table | Three-section marble top on a concealed powder-coated steel substructure, mechanical joints | Sized to the 1,100 × 2,000 mm goods-lift car; joints aligned to the seating rhythm |
| Ceiling | Accessible 600 × 600 grid with a suspended acoustic raft over the table | Absorption where it matters, sprinkler and detector access everywhere else |
| Flooring | Carpet tile over levelled screed, acoustic underlay | Footfall isolation and broadband absorption in a room full of hard surfaces |
| Wall finish | Timber-veneer panelling to the display wall, acoustic fabric to the rear wall | The rear wall is the reflective surface behind the camera and the microphone array |
| AV | 85 in display, ceiling microphone array, horizon camera, in-table connectivity spine | Positions fixed before the ceiling was designed, not after |
| Lighting | Dimmable 4000 K linear over the table, 3000 K perimeter, separate display scene | A single bright scene washes the display and flattens faces on camera |
Programme — zone three
| Stage | Duration | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Demolition and partition framing | Week 1, after hours | Sealed dust barriers to the occupied zones on both sides |
| Services and AV first fix | Week 2 | HVAC branch, electrical, data, microphone and camera cabling before any ceiling |
| Glazing and ceiling | Week 3 | Partitions glazed and sealed at head and base, acoustic raft hung, grid closed |
| Table, joinery and finishes | Week 4 | Marble sections lifted in on booked slots, substructure levelled, joints closed and polished |
| AV commissioning and handover | Week 5 | Microphone gain structure set, camera framing, lighting scenes, snag closed, zone handed back |
The outcome
Speech from inside the boardroom is not intelligible in the adjacent corridor at normal conference volume, which is the practical test that matters and the one a partial-height partition fails. Reverberation inside sits at roughly 0.5 seconds, so the far end of a video call hears the person at the far end of the table.
The table arrived in three pieces on three lift slots and was assembled in the room in a single afternoon. Nothing was stranded in the loading bay, which on a Mumbai commercial project is not a small claim.
The acoustic glass was the line item we questioned hardest and it is the one we would keep first if we did it again.
Facilities Manager, Sleepmax
What we would highlight
- Acoustic partitions must run to the slab. Stopping at the ceiling grid wastes the entire rating you paid for.
- Size stone to the lift before you size it to the room. A slab that cannot go up is a total loss, not a delay.
- Switchable film outlasts blinds. No fabric to collect dust, no mechanism to jam, no half-raised blind in a client meeting.
- Treat the ceiling over the table. The first ceiling reflection is what makes the far end of a long table unintelligible on a call.
- Fix AV positions before the ceiling design. Reversing that order is how microphones end up wherever there was space.
Selected work by Greenbox Design Studio. Tap any image to enlarge.
Frequently asked questions
How do you make a glass boardroom confidential?+
Double-glazed acoustic partitions rated around 48 dB, run full height to the structural slab with sealed head and base details. Most glass meeting rooms fail because the partition stops at the ceiling grid and sound travels over it through the ceiling void — a 48 dB system installed that way performs closer to 30 dB.
Is switchable privacy film better than blinds in a meeting room?+
In our experience yes. It goes clear to opaque instantly on a wall switch, has no fabric to collect dust, no mechanism to jam and no half-raised state. It costs more than blinds up front and less over a five-year occupancy, and it is the detail clients comment on most.
How do you get a large boardroom table into a Mumbai office?+
By sizing it to the goods-lift car before approaching the supplier. This table is three marble sections on a concealed steel substructure with mechanical joints tightened from below, each section within the 1,100 × 2,000 mm lift car. The joint lines are aligned to the seating rhythm so they read as intentional.
What makes a boardroom sound bad on video calls?+
An untreated ceiling over a hard table. The first ceiling reflection arrives at the microphone array milliseconds behind the direct voice and smears speech from the far end of the table. A suspended acoustic raft over the table plus carpet tile brought this room to about 0.5 seconds of reverberation.
Can a boardroom be built while the office is occupied?+
Yes. This one was zone three of a four-phase fit-out with zones one and two already handed back and in use. Demolition and core drilling ran after hours behind sealed dust barriers, and quiet trades ran during business hours. The wider approach is described on the Sleepmax office case study.