As a sound guy, I've always been into acoustic architecture. It's overlooked (except for performance spaces or recording studios) and under appreciated, when do

As a sound guy, I've always been into acoustic architecture. It's overlooked (except for performance spaces or recording studios) and under appreciated, when done well it really makes a difference, it can really set the atmosphere of a place. As part of the backlash against open office it's gotten a lot more attention (as the article mentions). But this being Hacker News, I want to complain about the most annoying trends in acoustic architectural design: Restaurants. I've noticed over the last ~10 years up-scale restaurants designing their spaces to be extremely "live", IE not much sound dampening so the place echoes amongst the concrete walls. The idea is that it sounds like so many people are there and it's really happening, because with even with two tables it can sound full. But so hard to have a conversation!