On a recent visit to a 600-square-foot room on the ninth floor of a Manhattan office building, there was no trace of any ambient sounds or background noise.

Typical distractions were undetectable: no honking horns or idling trucks passing by outside on busy Park Avenue, no rumble from the three subway lines underground, and not a bump, whir or muffled shout from neighboring tenants.

The acoustically isolated room, called the “PinDrop” and designed by the 41-year-old environmental engineering consulting firm AKRF, is being touted by the firm as one of the quietest rooms in New York. The hybrid work schedule taking root in U.S. office culture is one reason AKRF says the room is getting more visitors, with more demand for redesigned conference rooms that let meeting participants working remotely better hear colleagues in the office.

AKRF and companies including Longman Lindsey and Shen Milsom & Wilke are trying to come up with new ways to meet those needs. AKRF's PinDrop marks one of the latest industry attempts to help real estate developers, architects and corporations hear in person different sound simulations and audio renderings in real time, versus what AKRF executives described as the traditional method of reports with visual numbers or graphs of sound levels.

The idea is that hearing those different real-life renderings and simulations in person will let clients better decide how much they want to spend and the type of materials to use for the design or construction of real estate. The projects can include residential towers, hospitals, schools, office conference rooms, hotels, and even film and TV production studios.

With a visit to the PinDrop, they can see if it’s worth spending, say, twice the amount of money to maybe reduce just by a few decibels the sound of airplanes flying by, trash compactors working outside, or noise coming from the next room, Benjamin Sachwald, co-lead of AKRF’s acoustics, noise and vibrations practice group, said in an interview.

That’s important as the rise of virtual Zoom meetings during the pandemic has played a part in increasing corporate demand for the PinDrop. Companies want meeting participants to better hear one another, Sachwald said.

“Because of the pandemic, everyone was on Zoom,” he said. Now as most industries have adopted a hybrid work approach, he added, "you have a lot of meetings where some people are in the room and everyone else is on Zoom. People have come to us and said, ‘We had this room that used to work when we were all together, or it used to work when we were all at home wearing our headsets. But now we’ve got half the team in a room and half the team virtually. The acoustics just aren’t good enough, people can’t hear what’s being said on the far end.’ … It’s an area of our business that has increased as a result.”

That’s not the only area of the business that’s seen increased pandemic-driven demand, according to Sachwald: AKRF is doing more business with TV and film production studios that are building soundstages to create more streaming content after more people started watching programs while they were at home.

Of course, there’s no guarantee some types of demand will keep growing as the pandemic eases and more people go back to the workplace. And new technologies and space use trends could be emerging that can rapidly disrupt an industry practice or standard. The very fact visitors must travel to the physical space itself also limits PinDrop’s potential growth opportunities.

Even though AKRF has been doing acoustic renderings dating back about a decade now, the work had been done in conference rooms, out in the field, or via headphones, Sachwald said.

“You were kind of limited in each of those formats to what you can and can’t do,” he said. The PinDrop “allows us to keep New York City out. We could be simulating very nuanced things that you can only hear in a space like this. But we could also be simulating the elevated train where the source level is 93 decibels, and we can play it back at real-life levels. … We can [hear] the noise from your [heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system] is going to be this, the noise coming through the windows is going to be that, and the noise coming from the subway below is going to be this other thing.”

Why does that matter in the real estate industry? While decisions for various use cases could be something as basic as deciding how many layers of Sheetrock to use between classrooms, other situations can involve six- or seven-figure choices concerning curtain wall selection and floor finishes depending on the level of noise mitigation that’s needed, he said.

For instance, a high-end condominium building on Manhattan’s Upper East Side seeking to sell at a premium with noise an important consideration for buyers opted to do a full-building noise isolation so that even the subway couldn’t be heard by the superintendent living in the cellar of the building, he said.

“We think of this room as a blank canvas on which we can put whatever acoustical image we want,” Daniel Abatemarco, who co-leads AKRF’s acoustics, noise and vibrations practice group with Sachwald, told CoStar News. “If you’re in a normal conference room or out in the field, you already have other acoustical phenomenon. You have background sounds. … You have the way the room responds and affects the sounds that occur in it. ... The whole object with the PinDrop was to create, essentially, acoustical blankness, so that we can control exactly what people … hear when they come in here.”

Other companies are working to similar ends. AKRF rival Longman Lindsey, for instance, has been working with Related Cos.’ Hudson Yards megacomplex in New York, the largest private U.S. development, on sound considerations for retail, luxury residential, office and hotel properties, all while dealing with the buzz of a continuously operating power plant, according to its website.

Shen Milsom & Wilke has worked on major acoustic projects in buildings around the world including Wintrust Arena in Chicago, the former Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. — before it was converted to Hilton’s Waldorf Astoria hotel — and luxury senior-living property Inspir on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

Controlling acoustics especially in big cities is key for developers such as Marx Realty, a firm with a portfolio that includes office towers in New York and D.C.

Marx has used materials including felt, cork and curtains and drapes in its offices to help absorb sound, said Marx CEO Craig Deitelzweig in an interview. “We are cognizant of” any noise and sound impact, he said.

Determining how different building materials may affect sound levels has only grown in importance during the supply chain crisis. A shortage that has hiked prices for plywood has led developers to seek alternatives, Sachwald said.

“Someone came to us and said, ‘OK, the product that was in our drawings or basis of design, it now has a lead time. And that doesn’t work for our schedule. The [general contractor] has proposed an alternative product.’ … We’ll put this new product into our model. And you can then hear your project with the basis of design versus the proposed alternative, and you decide if it’s good enough.”

An AKRF spokesperson declined to identify PinDrop’s clients but said the firm’s overall acoustical team has worked with Google, Coca-Cola, Netflix, NASCAR, Toll Brothers City Living and Moxy Hotels. AKRF said it also has helped New York revise its noise code and advised various other municipalities on developing or updating their noise ordinances, which often include decibel requirements for HVAC equipment and construction activities.

Outside of the acoustics practice, the firm has also worked on projects including serving as the civil engineer for the 111 W. 57th St. residential development in New York, billed as the world’s most slender skyscraper, according to its website.

AKRF said it provides free demos at PinDrop for prospective customers. For existing clients that want sound simulation as part of a project, there is a fee based on the scope of work. The room, officially opened in April, took a year in design and construction as part of a 2,500-square-foot overhaul at New York-based AKRF’s office at 440 Park Ave. S.

AKRF declined to specify how much it spent on building the PinDrop. But Sachwald said an acoustically isolated room, depending on size, design specifics and “technology trim” level, would be in the $100,000 to $250,000 range for an entry-level space with premium models easily costing more than $1 million.

Sachwald said the room has hosted hundreds of clients from as far as Europe and California.