In an operating theatre, sound isn’t the only thing that has to behave. The building itself has to stop shaking too.
| Client CIAP Architects, for Mount Elizabeth Novena Hospital | Location Royal Square Medical Centre, Singapore |
| Service Acoustic Design | Completed 2025 |
| Certification BCA Green Mark 2021 & HTM 08-01 Healthcare Acoustics | |
2 Operating Theatres
Plus 4 endoscopy procedure rooms and a 21-bed recovery area, each with its own acoustic profile
NR30
Target noise rating for the VIP recovery area, the strictest in the entire clinic
0.005 m/s²
Maximum vibration level permitted in the operating theatres, the strictest threshold in the building
The Situation
CIAP Architects engaged Soundzipper for the acoustic design of a new endoscopy clinic for Mount Elizabeth Novena Hospital, built into Level 8 of Royal Square Medical Centre. The space was previously occupied by a fertility clinic and required a full reconfiguration into a working ambulatory care facility, including 2 operating theatres, 4 endoscopy procedure rooms, a general recovery area with 21 trolley beds, and a VIP recovery room, alongside reception, patient lounge, changing rooms, and a meeting room. The project needed to meet BCA Green Mark 2021’s interior acoustic comfort requirements, but healthcare facilities carry an additional layer most office or retail projects never encounter: Health Technical Memorandum 08-01, the UK-derived standard for acoustics in clinical environments, which governs not just sound but vibration.
What We Found
Every room in the clinic carries its own noise rating, set well below typical office standards. The VIP recovery area was set to NR30, general recovery wards to NR35, and the operating theatres to NR40. But the more unusual challenge was vibration, a factor that rarely comes up outside healthcare and laboratory work. Operating theatres and precision spaces in this project were held to a maximum frequency-weighted vibration level of 0.005 metres per second squared, the tightest threshold in HTM 08-01, eight times stricter than the limit for general offices. This matters because some endoscopy and surgical equipment is itself vibration-sensitive, meaning structural vibration from building services, footfall, or nearby plant could degrade equipment performance even if the room is acoustically silent. The layout also had to keep high-privacy spaces, such as the VIP recovery room and consulting rooms, away from high-noise-generating areas like the operating theatres and endoscopy units.
What We Designed
Wall partitions were specified from STC 45 to STC 55 depending on adjacency, with a mandatory mock-up requirement: before full installation, the contractor was required to build one sample room for each STC rating type, allowing acoustic performance to be verified before the rest of the clinic was built around the same design. Doors were rated to match, down to proprietary acoustic double-glazed sliding and swing doors for the higher ratings. Reverberation time targets were specified per room type: 0.6 seconds for the VIP recovery area, with the operating theatres and clinical zones held to a “minimise for noise control” standard rather than a fixed figure, achieved through sound-absorbent ceiling and wall finishes selected to also meet infection control requirements for washable, cleanable surfaces, a constraint unique to healthcare interiors. For vibration, the design called for a full assessment by the project’s structural engineer covering both mechanical plant vibration and footfall vibration from people moving through the building, with jack-up spring floating floors or damping underlays specified for any area found to be at risk. Every pipe, duct, and electrical penetration through an acoustic wall was sealed to the same standard used across Soundzipper’s commercial projects, but here the stakes were different: a single unsealed gap doesn’t just let sound through, it can affect the reliability of a piece of diagnostic equipment in active clinical use.