A large, unbroken stretch of hard wall does two things at once: it gives a room nowhere obvious to capture ideas, and it reflects sound rather than absorbing it, which is part of why open-plan offices get noisy. Facilities teams often notice the noise problem and the writing-space problem separately, without connecting them to the same wall.

Recognising that both problems share a cause is the first step toward a single specification that addresses both, rather than two separate purchases competing for the same wall space.

Facilities teams that walk a room specifically listening for echo, rather than just looking at the wall, tend to spot this shared cause more quickly than those relying on a written complaint alone.

A design whiteboard gives a room a genuine writing surface, which is what most teams reach for first since it is the more visible, immediate need. On its own, though, a hard ceramic steel surface does nothing for the room’s acoustics, and in some cases adds a small amount of additional hard reflective surface to a wall that is already too reflective.

It is worth being honest about this limitation when specifying: a whiteboard-only wall in a genuinely noisy open-plan area will still be a noisy open-plan area, just with somewhere to write things down while it happens.

An acoustic panel absorbs sound rather than reflecting it, reducing echo and background noise in an open-plan room. It does nothing for writing space on its own, and a panel-only wall still leaves a team without anywhere to sketch out an idea during a meeting.

Neither product alone addresses both underlying issues, which is exactly why combining them on the same wall is worth considering before defaulting to two separate purchases.

Acoustic panels vary considerably in absorption performance, so specifying one purely for its appearance without checking its acoustic rating can leave a room only marginally quieter than before.

Manufacturers typically publish a sound absorption coefficient for each panel product, and comparing this figure between options is a more reliable way to judge suitability than comparing panels purely on appearance or price.

A single wall that pairs a design whiteboard with acoustic panelling on either side gives a room writing space and noise absorption without doubling up on wall space or budget. This works particularly well in open-plan areas where noise is a genuine daily complaint, not just an occasional distraction.

The two products need to be specified together from the start, since retrofitting acoustic panelling around an already-installed whiteboard rarely produces as clean a result.

Budget-wise, this combined approach is usually more efficient than solving the two problems on separate walls, since shared installation and a single supplier relationship reduce the overall project overhead compared with two independent purchases.

In smaller meeting rooms or rooms with naturally good acoustics, such as those with carpet and soft furnishings already absorbing sound, a whiteboard alone is often enough and acoustic panelling would be solving a problem that does not really exist in that room.

The decision comes down to whether noise is an actual measured complaint in that specific space, not an assumption applied uniformly across every room in an office.

A quick informal test, such as clapping and listening for how quickly the sound dies down, often gives a reasonable early indication of whether a room genuinely needs acoustic treatment.

See how design whiteboard can be combined with acoustic panels on the same wall when a room needs both.