Groenlo

Merford contributes to a low-stimulus acoustic environment with Akotherm panels for the more than 300 people who work and learn at Fijnder in Groenlo, The Netherlands.

Fijnder in Groenlo is one of the largest social work companies in the north of The Netherlands. They provide a sheltered environment for people with a distance to the labor market. At Fijnder, these people can focus on their social, personal and professional development. They gain experience with various activities in the workshop and are supported in their development by the skilled staff of Fijnder throughout the whole process.

Customer Fijnder
Market Consumers and small businesses
Year of completion 2022

Since the first of March 2022, Fijnder has a brand-new location. This location includes a large modern workshop and a beautiful company restaurant, but due to the size and height of the rooms, the acoustics were anything but pleasant. After an acoustic measurement it was clear that there was a problem with the reverberation time.

Akotherm panels improve the reverberation time.

Merford subsequently tackled the issue and developed a solution to optimize the acoustics in the rooms with sound absorbing Akotherm panels. The challenge for Merford was to hang the many custom-made Akotherm panels while the spaces were still in active use. Many activities were therefore carried out in the evening (in coordination with Fijnder).

Collaborate, learn and grow at Fijnder

As can be seen in the photos, the alignment of the different panels plays a major role in the final result. They showed us that Fijnder stands for personal growth and cooperation. Eef Tammel (head of technical support at Fijnder) often has innovative ideas. When he saw Merford's assembly department busy. He came up with the idea to use a simple wall plug as an invisible spacer. This cost-effective solution made it even easier to align the panels with each other.

The people who work at Fijnder are enthusiastic about the result. So are Shanon Kolenbrander and Tuur Rutjes. Contacts for Merford within Fijnder.

“We don't do a project like this every day. Before requesting quotes from various companies, we estimated what something like this would cost. We weren’t quite right there. That became clear when we received about five offers from different parties. In the end we had the best feeling with Merford. The project and the collaboration with Merford went nice and smoothly. The result is astonishing acoustics, a feast for the eyes and well worth every euro invested.”

- Shanon Kolenbrander and Tuur Rutjes, Fijnder

Merford is pleased and, above all, proud of the fact that we were able to help Fijnder create an even more pleasant working environment. A project like this is closely related to our mission:

"Shaping sound to enhance people's wellbeing"

We would like to thank Fijnder for the trust in Merford. We are very satisfied with the achieved result.