Illustrative worked example. This is a realistic brief run through Echo using the same method a real report uses — not an account of a named past client. See every case study for more, including which of these are real, permissioned projects as they're added.
The brief
The owner of an independent hotel in a converted Georgian townhouse had started seeing noise mentioned in review-site comments — always about the lobby and bar, always about not being able to hear the receptionist over the bar at busy check-in times.
Combined lobby and bar, ground floor
12 × 9 × 4.5 m, about 486 m³ — stone and lime-plaster walls, marble entrance flooring, ornate plaster ceiling, large sash windows.
Stone, marble and a high plaster ceiling put the room at roughly 1.4 seconds — lively enough to read as characterful for a few minutes, and tiring enough over a stay that it was showing up in reviews.
The standard, and the target
There's no statutory reverberation limit for a hotel lobby, so the brief was set by what the room needed to do: stay lively rather than dead, while letting a receptionist and a guest hear each other over a half-full bar. In practice that meant aiming for something closer to a well-run restaurant than a cathedral — broadly 0.7 to 0.9 seconds.
The constraint
The building's listed status ruled out anything fixed to the stone walls, the marble floor or the ornate ceiling — which eliminated the three largest surfaces in the room before the brief even reached a shortlist of options.
The decision
Everything proposed was freestanding or removable: heavy lined drapes at the sash windows, upholstered banquette seating replacing loose bar chairs, and a large wool rug across the seating area of the lobby — kept clear of the protected marble at the entrance itself.
Every route considered, vendor-neutral — we don't sell any of it.
- Lined drapes at the sash windowsabout 22 m²
Reversible, and in keeping with a period interior rather than fighting it.
- Upholstered banquette seating14 covers
Replaced loose bar chairs — a guest-experience upgrade that happens to be absorption too.
- Large wool rug, seating area onlyabout 30 m²
Positioned to leave the protected marble at the entrance completely untouched.
The outcome
The model predicts the three changes would bring the room from roughly 1.4 seconds to around 0.8, close to the restaurant-comfort range, so check-in conversations should compete less with the bar, without any alteration to the listed fabric. This is a design-stage prediction for an illustrative room, not a measured result.
Indicative figures for this example, from the same method a real report uses. Not a measured survey and not a compliance certificate — where one is required, that's a survey to BS EN ISO 3382-2.
Now do it for your room.
Four questions, about a minute. Free to see whether you have a problem.
Check my room →Questions people ask
Why no wall panels?
Every wall in the room was original stone or lime plaster under a listed-building consent — nothing could be fixed to them, which is why the whole fix had to be freestanding furniture and textiles instead.
Is 0.8 seconds an official target?
No — there's no regulation to cite here, which is worth being honest about rather than inventing one. It's a design judgement, informed by what a comfortable, lively hospitality space typically measures at.
Would this work in a modern-build hotel lobby?
The principle would, but a modern lobby usually has far more available surface (plasterboard, suspended ceiling, non-protected flooring) to work with, so the fastest route is often different — this example is specifically about what's left once the obvious routes are ruled out.