Sonify

Innovation overview and development

An overview of the product
Launched on the 3rd November 2022, Sonify by Zentia is a pioneering discontinuous acoustic ceiling solution that allows architects and specifiers to create something truly unique and exciting, yet achievable for every project, while absorbing sound beautifully.

Sonify by Zentia encompasses:
• Ground-breaking online parametric design tool (Sonify 3D Studio) that allows architects, specifiers, and other interiors professionals to create unique acoustic ceiling designs quickly and easily. Entirely new to the ceilings industry, Sonify 3D Studio brings ideas to life using our range of pre-engineered panel shapes and colours before exporting their designs into their existing digital workflows in a few simple clicks.
• Acoustic canopies and baffles available in a range of 35 standard colours and 17 standard shapes, including squares, rectangles, circles, and hexagons, as well as angled and curved baffles. This extensive range of panels can be installed in an unlimited number of configurations and designs with unrivalled speed, accuracy and precision.
• Innovative grid solution (Sonify Create, patent pending) available in three colours (white, black and galvanised steel); the grid capping can be painted in any one of our 35 colours, giving architects and other specifiers the opportunity to turn the grid into a unique statement design feature.
• Sonify Create is a grid system that allows complex canopy and baffle configurations to be installed in half the time of the traditional, more common cable systems, with none of the associated misalignment with hanging these systems using traditional cables.

Designed to support the ease of installation and provide unrivalled accuracy and stability, the Sonify Create range of suspension grid and accessories allows for a modular design approach and is also a design feature. With the grid body available in galvanised steel, white or black and grid end caps available in grey, white, and black, we are the first UK manufacturer to offer grid capping in 35 standard colours.

The innovative grid solution (patent pending) allows customers to overcome numerous issues or problems that could occur with cable-based installations such as such as pillars, crowded voids, and daunting large-scale installations. Feedback from our Pinnacle Partners has also indicated the reduced number of top fixings required time to install a Sonify design will aid the working time directives with vibrating power tools, limiting the risk to the installer of a Vibration White Finger Injury.

In a recent controlled test two identical discontinuous configurations were installed. One used the traditional cable-based method of installation, while the other used the new Sonify Create method of grid-based installation. Using our Sonify Create grid system resulted in 50% quicker installation time and a reduction in the number of top fixings required due to its innovative design and its ability to address on-site issues such as crowded voids and insufficient fixing points.

How the new product was developed, including effective collaboration, knowledge transfer and partnership along the project team
Zentia commissioned an extensive market research project to explore the size of the market as well as trends relating to exposed ceilings, materials, and the use of discontinuous ceiling solutions. In addition to using a third-party research company, we asked our specification partners for their feedback on current solutions in the market and our proposed solution.

The key findings identified pain points from architects, distributors, and ceiling installers when specifying, distributing, and installing these canopy and baffle systems.

Zentia’s NPD team used this research to design a solution that addressed key findings such as ease of design, speed and accuracy of installation. Using this valuable research, Zentia also looked at how they could take the project further an offer new unique features such as coloured grid, an expanded standard colour range, unrivalled lead times and a ‘kit of parts’ approach to distribution.

Throughout the development of Sonify, our NPD team worked collaboratively with our Pinnacle Partners (our network of preferred ceiling installers) and our distribution network to ensure that the system we were proposing offered value to the industry. As a result of this collaboration, we made some further product amendments to ensure the system was fit for purpose.

In addition to this, our digital planning system (Sonify 3D Studio) was also trialled with a select number of architects and specifiers to ensure we delivered a digital tool that offered creativity whilst embracing the principles of parametric design.

How might this product have an influence on the specification
The creative flexibility of Sonify 3D Studio – an industry first online configurator – allows users to design, visualise, and reconfigure Sonify acoustic discontinuous ceilings in a highly interactive, immersive, and visually stunning 3D environment.

This process allows for full governance and adherence to the Golden Thread by issuing a unique project ID and bill of materials that remains the reference from the original specification right through to the ordering and distribution of the system.

From an installation viewpoint, the ease of installation coupled with unrivalled accuracy and stability has opened the opportunity to install large scale discontinuous ceiling solutions with ease so architects’ designs are supported throughout the project, with major benefits to ceiling installers once the project goes to site.

How can this product enhance an interior space
Sonify by Zentia makes it easier than ever to offer client’s beautiful and aspirational discontinuous ceiling solutions on every project, without compromising on acoustic performance.

Sonify by Zentia offers a large range of standard colours to complement existing décor or proposed designs.Combined with a choice of shapes, configurations and the option of varying heights, Sonify can be used as a large scale discontinuous ceiling solution as a statement design.

Sonify can also be used as smaller rafts to assist with wayfinding or ‘zoning’ large spaces such as open plan offices with the additional benefits of improved acoustic performance

How the product improved usability and / or performance of the interior system
Sonify by Zentia was developed to ensure that pain points from identified during our extensive market research with multiple stakeholders were addressed.

We worked closely with our Pinnacle Partners, distributors and select architects to ensure that what we were proposing demonstrated value through increased productivity across the entire project timeline.

From the initial design using Sonify 3D Studio to support digital workflows and generating a unique Project ID number to the seamless ordering and distribution as kit of parts against using a unique project ID code.

Productivity levels are further improved on site by utilising he Sonify Create range of suspension grid and accessories, a system that has shown tangible result during trials to improve efficiency on site during the installation

One ceiling installer taking part in the trial turned to the Zentia team and directly said, ‘Why would you ever use cables again?’ A pinnacle moment during the development and launch of Sonify by Zentia.