Case study · Pharmaceutical and life sciences
GSK, Melbourne
A workplace soundscape strategy built around employee agency, across 1,500 square metres of soundscaped floor within a 1,700 square metre workplace. It began in Melbourne in 2024 and now runs across their workplaces in Australia, Europe, Asia and North America.
Project details
- Client
- GSK
- Lead location
- Melbourne, opened 2024. 1,500 m² of soundscaped area within a 1,700 m² workplace; the meeting rooms carry no soundscaping
- Sector
- Pharmaceutical and life sciences
- Valeo Technology role
- Adaptive soundscaping design, change management, delivery and commissioning, engaged directly by GSK, and the S06 report for the WELL certification
- Certification
- WELL Certification at the Platinum level. WELL v2 feature S06 Minimum Background Sound commissioned and reported
- Scale
- Ten Moodsonic zones, on Bose Professional FreeSpace in-ceiling and pendant loudspeakers
- Workplace design practice
- M Moser Associates. The soundscaping scope sat outside the interiors package and was developed with GSK directly.
- Programme reach
- Australia, Europe, Asia and North America; extended to Bangkok (2026) and Taipei (2026)
- Recognition
- Deployment spotlighted in IWBI’s Investing in Health Pays Back, second edition, September 2025
The challenge
Give people a say in their environment
The most common objection to workplace soundscaping is not about the technology. It is that nobody asked me.
For a global employer rolling out across many offices, that objection is the whole risk: a soundscape people did not choose is a soundscape people resent, however good it sounds.
The approach
Give people the controls
So the design put the choice in the employee’s hands.
A web application lets people navigate the soundscape options available in each zone, and feedback is captured zone by zone rather than as one building-wide survey. Zoning means people can move to the environment that suits the work in front of them, and then adjust it. Change management ran before installation, so people understood what was being introduced and why.
What was installed
Adaptive soundscapes
Localised content incorporating biophilia and local design cues, so the Melbourne workplace sounds like Melbourne rather than like a global template.
Secure sensing
Insight Edge secure sensors reading acoustic conditions locally. Acoustic data is processed into metadata for sound levels, frequency and events. It is not conversation recording. Raw audio is never transmitted or stored off-device.
Employee control
A web application for navigating soundscape options, plus zone-by-zone feedback capture.
Delivered in collaboration with the interior design practice and the acoustic and WELL consultants, rather than bolted on after the fitout. Ten Moodsonic zones across the floor, on Bose Professional FreeSpace in-ceiling and pendant loudspeakers, as documented in the AV Technology case study.
Named by the standards body
The International WELL Building Institute wrote about this deployment
IWBI’s September 2025 special report Investing in Health Pays Back carries a spotlight on GSK’s headquarters. Their words, not ours:
“Nature soundscapes in the office mitigated the severity of noise distractions; this effective sound masking improved employees’ decision-making by 8%.”
The same report notes that GSK holds the largest deployment of biophilic soundscaping.
International WELL Building Institute, Investing in Health Pays Back, second edition, September 2025. The report does not name a vendor in the spotlight, and we do not claim it does.
Why it is worth more than a testimonial.
It is published by the body that writes the standard, about a named global client, describing nature soundscapes doing the job conventional masking is specified for.
The standard measures the level, not the experience. WELL awards points for sound masking on a level criterion, and nothing for whether the sound is pleasant. That gap is the entire argument of our evidence page.
In their words
Two ways to describe the same system
“We’ve received feedback from staff that nature sounds help improve their mood.”
Arnald Ng, Director of Real Estate and Project Delivery, GSK. Quoted in AV Technology, August 2025.
“Turn it off. Don’t worry, we’ll turn the Moodsonic system back on. Hey presto, you begin to relax and focus once more.”
Marcus Rose, Valeo Technology. Quoted in AV Technology, August 2025. His description of the demonstration: people notice a soundscape when it stops, not when it starts.
Outcome
A pilot that became a programme
The Melbourne workplace opened in 2024. The programme subsequently extended to Bangkok in June 2026 and Taipei in July 2026, and Valeo Technology supports installed systems in Hong Kong, Singapore and now China.
Soundscaping now runs across GSK workplaces in Australia, Europe, Asia and North America, and the deployment was written up by the International WELL Building Institute. It is the clearest example on this site of a single well-handled floor turning into a portfolio-level relationship.
Coverage
Documented elsewhere
The workplace has been written up by the trade and property press, and by the designers. Between them they carry the certification, the design intent and the technical build.
GSK Melbourne case study
AV Technology, August 2025. The technical account: ten Moodsonic zones, the loudspeaker selection, and the WELL background sound bands.
Case study video
AV Technology. Filmed on the floor, embedded below.
GSK surpasses its workplace wellness ambitions
Commercial Real Estate, November 2024. Confirms WELL Certification at the Platinum level, and carries the line that GSK was the sixth Platinum workplace in Melbourne.
GSK Melbourne
M Moser Associates, the workplace design practice. Their account of the brief and the consolidation of two floors into one. Useful for the interiors context; note their page still describes the project as targeting WELL Gold, which the Platinum outcome has since overtaken.
Good Design Award for inclusive, adaptive spaces
Moodsonic, 2024. The workplace won a 2024 Australian Good Design Award, credited to GSK as client and M Moser Associates as designer.
Watch
On video
AV Technology filmed a case study at the Melbourne workplace, walking the zones and talking to the people who use them. Worth headphones.
AV Technology.