# Improving Engineering Design Using Smart Evaluation of Indoor Acoustical Climate of Dining Places
## 7 Conclusions  
In this study, an assessment method for the indoor acoustical climate of dining places is presented. The proposed method is assumed to provide a convenient evaluation of places during the early stage of the design process. This method is based on the index parameter \(W_{R}\) and maybe a functional tool for architects and designers. Implementing this method increases the comfort of restaurants and cafeterias and lowers or avoids costs associated with improving the acoustic comfort of ready-to-use dining places.  
The proposed method and \(W_{R}\) index, confirmed by the subjective assessment, provide architects and designers with an easy-to-use \"instrument\" allowing quick and accessible assessment of the acoustic properties of particular dining places during design and introduce achievable corrections and applicable selection of architectural-acoustic parameters. To date, there are no such practical tools for architects and designers in the design and decision-making community.  
The method reveals how architectural and acoustic parameters can be chosen to ensure that the acoustic climate of dining places is adequate for reproducing speech sounds.  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{l c c} \hline  & **Restaurant A** & **Restaurant B** \\ \hline  & Subjective assessment & \\ \hline
1. Noise & not acceptable & acceptable \\  & (0/3/7) & (2/7/1) \\ \hline
2. Background music & acceptable & acceptable \\  & (0/10/0) & (0/9/1) \\ \hline
3. Quality of verbal communication & problematic & good \\  & (3/7/0) & (8/2/0) \\ \hline
4. Atmosphere & noisy & lively/calm \\  & (0/0/10) & (5/5/0) \\ \hline  & Objective assessment & \\ \hline  & **10** & **18** \\ \(W_{R}\) **index** & **sufficient acoustic** & **acceptable acoustic** \\  & **climate** & **climate** \\ \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table}
Table 7: The results of the subjective assessment in the two restaurants, with individual answers related to the quality elements under assessment, are given in Table 4.  
Moreover, the method causes architects and designers to be more aware of the threats that affect the acoustic conditions in dining places.  
The developed simplified method of dining place evaluation, intended for designers and architects, can also be a part of more extensive software connected to the reading of architectural drawings [34] or BIM technology-related software for parametric modelling of building information.  
The proposed method is limited to restaurants, school cafeterias, and fast food restaurants, where speech intelligibility plays a significant role. The method is not appropriate for bars and clubs because loud music is the main factor in these types of enclosures. Additionally, as the simplicity of the method was a main assumption of the proposed method, dynamic factors were not considered. Further research should address these aspects to refine this model.  
This article is a continuation of the author's previous research on other types of public utility enclosures and buildings, such as long rooms and commercial buildings. There is a wish for further development of the proposed method. In the future, the method will be extended to other public spaces, such as sports halls or open offices.  
For architects, the final general impression of their designed enclosure is important, not the acoustical parameters. For acousticians, the reverberation time, speech intelligibility, and sound levels are crucial. Therefore, the proposed method combines both of these elements and makes the selection of architectural parameters influencing the acoustic quality of a room easier and more understandable for people without acoustic knowledge.  
This research received no external funding.  
Not applicable.  
Informed Consent Statement: Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.  
The data analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.  
The author declares no conflicts of interest.