Courtyard by Marriott Chengdu South is a 312-room hotel in the central business district of Chengdu’s Tianfu New Area. Before opening, the project team identified inadequate sound isolation in guestrooms—a serious hospitality risk because footsteps, rolling luggage and other floor impacts can travel through the building structure and disturb rooms above or below.
Following a site survey and an assessment of the likely noise sources and transmission paths, LEEYIN developed a focused hotel floor soundproofing solution. QPLAN sound-insulation and vibration-damping mats were installed below the floor construction, while the mat-to-wall junctions were sealed to avoid rigid perimeter connections and edge leakage. The purpose was to reduce impact excitation at the source and interrupt structure-borne transmission through the floor-and-wall system.
Evidence note: The project scope and treatment described here come from the supplied LEEYIN project record. Product thickness, tested improvement in decibels, treated floor area and final field-test data were not supplied, so no numerical performance claim is made. The hotel photographs show the finished environment; they do not expose the concealed floor build-up.
Project Overview
| Item | Project information |
|---|---|
| Project | Courtyard by Marriott Chengdu South |
| Chinese name | 成都天投万怡酒店 |
| Location | No. 288 Expo City Road, Tianfu New Area, Chengdu, Sichuan, China |
| Hotel context | 312 guestrooms; approximately 42,000 m² building area according to the supplied project record |
| Acoustic concern | Inadequate guestroom sound isolation, with particular attention to floor impact and structure-borne noise |
| Engineering process | Site survey, identification of noise sources and transmission paths, then system detailing |
| Primary treatment | QPLAN resilient sound-insulation and vibration-damping mat below the floor construction |
| Critical junction | Sealed mat-to-wall perimeter to avoid rigid bridging and edge leakage |
| Intended outcome | Better control of footsteps, rolling luggage and other impact-generated vibration between stacked rooms |
| Evidence boundary | No verified dB improvement, product thickness, coverage quantity or commissioning report was supplied |
What Is Hotel Floor Soundproofing?
Hotel floor soundproofing is the use of resilient layers, isolated floor build-ups and carefully detailed junctions to reduce the impact energy transferred from a floor finish into the structural slab. It primarily controls footsteps, dropped objects, chair movement and rolling luggage—not every form of airborne, plumbing, façade or mechanical noise.
The Hotel Context: Acoustic Comfort in a Stacked Guestroom Building
The hotel occupies a prominent location in the Qinhuangsi central business district, within Chengdu’s national-level Tianfu New Area. Marriott’s official property information identifies 312 guestrooms and a location close to Metro Line 1. The supplied project record describes a total building area of approximately 42,000 m² and positions the development as part of Chengdu’s southward urban expansion.
In a hotel of this scale, acoustic comfort is not a decorative extra. Guests judge a room by whether they can sleep, work and recover without being repeatedly distracted by activity elsewhere in the building. A single weak floor junction can affect two rooms; a repeated construction detail can reproduce the same weakness across many stacked floors.
The finished hotel uses a contemporary palette of stone, glass, timber tones and large areas of hard flooring. These surfaces support the architectural identity, but they also make source control and construction detailing important. Hard finishes do not cushion footsteps in the way a thick textile layer might, and wheeled luggage can produce short, repetitive impacts. Public spaces, stairs, corridors and guestrooms therefore need to be considered as one connected vibration environment.
The Acoustic Problem: Impact Noise and Structure-Borne Transmission
The project record states that guestroom sound isolation was found to be inadequate before the hotel entered use. LEEYIN’s first task was to investigate where noise was generated and how it could travel. That distinction matters because hotel noise has several different mechanisms:
- Impact sound begins when an object strikes or moves across a surface: footsteps, a suitcase wheel crossing a joint, a chair leg sliding or an item falling.
- Structure-borne sound occurs when that impact makes a slab, wall, column or connected service vibrate. The vibration can then radiate as audible sound in another room.
- Airborne sound originates in speech, television, music or other sound sources and passes through walls, doors, glazing, ceilings and gaps.
- Building-services noise can come from plumbing, drainage, HVAC equipment, lifts, pumps and other mechanical systems.
The selected floor treatment was aimed chiefly at the first two mechanisms. It reduced the mechanical connection between the finished floor and the base structure, helping to limit the amount of impact energy entering the slab.
The marble staircase illustrates why impact control matters in hospitality buildings. Stone is durable and visually refined, yet direct footfall can readily excite a rigid stair or landing. The exact staircase treatment is not documented here, but the image demonstrates the type of hard-surface source that should be considered when tracing noise paths near guestrooms.
From Site Survey to a Targeted Noise-Control Strategy
An effective retrofit or pre-opening correction begins with diagnosis, not a generic material list. According to the supplied record, LEEYIN conducted an on-site survey and modeled the distribution of noise sources and the routes by which vibration could propagate.
A practical hotel investigation should examine:
- Which rooms report or exhibit the problem, and whether the disturbance comes from above, below, beside or from a corridor.
- Whether the sound is associated with footsteps, wheeled luggage, plumbing use, equipment operation, speech or an external source.
- Whether rigid connections exist at wall perimeters, thresholds, columns, risers, pipe penetrations or floor drains.
- Whether the floor finish and screed are continuous across room boundaries or bridged to vertical elements.
- Whether source and receiving rooms share a slab, wall, pipe chase or structural frame.
This source–path–receiver method avoids asking one product to solve unrelated noise problems. For the guestrooms at Courtyard by Marriott Chengdu South, the resulting strategy concentrated on a resilient floor layer and controlled perimeter junctions.
The QPLAN Floor Isolation Solution
The project used QPLAN sound-insulation and vibration-damping mats below the floor construction. A resilient mat works by introducing a compliant layer between the walking surface or floor topping and the supporting structure. When a footstep or object applies a short impact, the layer deforms and dissipates part of the energy instead of allowing the entire impulse to pass directly into the slab.
In building-acoustic terms, this creates the basis of an isolated or floating floor. The final result depends on the complete assembly—not simply the presence of a mat. The stiffness and thickness of the resilient layer, the mass and load distribution of the floor above, the perimeter detail, penetrations, workmanship and final finish all influence performance.
Guestrooms combine sleeping, circulation and wet-area functions within a compact footprint. The underfloor system must therefore remain continuous where required while coordinating with bathroom waterproofing, thresholds, door clearances and fixed furniture. A resilient material should also resist excessive compression under the expected floor load so that it does not create an unstable or cracked finish.
How a Typical Resilient Floor Build-Up Works
The concealed build-up for this project was not supplied, so the following sequence is a design explanation rather than an as-built specification:
- Prepare a clean and sufficiently level structural base.
- Install the specified resilient mat continuously, with joints closed or treated according to the approved system.
- Turn up or add resilient perimeter isolation at walls, columns and other vertical elements.
- Detail pipes, drains and penetrations so that rigid components do not short-circuit the isolation layer.
- Place the load-distribution layer or screed without puncturing, displacing or bridging the mat.
- Complete the floor finish, trim excess perimeter material only at the correct stage, and seal the finished junction where required.
Any project-specific installation should follow the approved shop drawings, manufacturer instructions, moisture strategy, load calculations and fire requirements.
Why the Sealed Wall Perimeter Was Critical
The most important detail in the supplied project description is the treatment where the QPLAN mat met the walls. LEEYIN used a sealed perimeter connection to prevent the floor build-up from forming a rigid link to the wall and to close potential edge leakage.
A floating floor can be compromised when its screed, adhesive, tile, skirting or other hard component touches a wall, column or pipe. This contact creates an acoustic bridge: vibration bypasses the resilient mat and travels through the rigid junction. Even a relatively small bridge can weaken the benefit of a larger isolated area.
The perimeter treatment therefore had two functions:
- Decoupling: maintaining separation between the floor topping and adjoining vertical construction.
- Sealing: closing the edge condition so that gaps do not become sound-leakage or workmanship weaknesses.
The detail should be continuous around the room and carefully coordinated at corners, doorways, bathroom thresholds, built-in furniture and service penetrations. “Almost continuous” isolation is not equivalent to a properly continuous system.
The view from the sleeping area toward the bathroom and entry zone highlights several junctions that require coordination: the hard floor transition, door threshold, plumbing zone and visible air-distribution opening. Floor isolation can reduce impact transmission, but gaps around doors, ducts or services require their own acoustic measures.
Bathrooms, Pipes and Thresholds: Where Flanking Paths Often Appear
Bathrooms are acoustically demanding because they place hard finishes, waterproofing, drains and service penetrations next to a quiet sleeping zone. A resilient floor system cannot be detailed in isolation from these elements.
Key coordination points include:
- preserving waterproofing while avoiding rigid floor-to-wall bridges;
- isolating pipe sleeves and penetrations where the design calls for it;
- preventing screed or grout from filling perimeter isolation gaps;
- resolving floor-height differences without a hard threshold bypass;
- checking that sanitary fixtures and pipework are supported without transmitting unnecessary vibration;
- treating drainage and plumbing noise separately when it is a significant source.
The supplied project narrative states that the floor-and-edge strategy helped interrupt possible transmission through connected walls and pipes. Technically, that should be understood as reducing a relevant structural path—not as proof that every wall, pipe or services-noise route was eliminated.
What the Treatment Can—and Cannot—Address
| Noise issue | Relevance of the QPLAN floor system | Additional measures that may be needed |
|---|---|---|
| Footsteps in the room above | Primary application: resilient isolation reduces impact energy entering the slab | Verify continuity, load and perimeter detailing |
| Rolling luggage and chair movement | Relevant where impacts pass through hard flooring | Soft furniture feet, operational controls and corridor-floor treatment |
| Dropped objects | Can reduce transmitted impact, subject to assembly performance | No floor system can prevent all impulsive sound |
| Speech and television through a partition | Limited; this is principally airborne sound | Higher-performing wall build-up, sealed junctions, doors and penetrations |
| Corridor noise through the guestroom door | Not a floor-underlay problem | Door leaf, frame seals, threshold and lobby planning |
| Plumbing and drainage noise | May help only where structural vibration enters the floor | Isolated pipe supports, wrapped pipes, shaft construction and layout |
| HVAC or equipment vibration | Not the primary application | Equipment mounts, flexible connectors, inertia bases and duct treatment |
| External traffic or construction noise | Not addressed by the floor mat | Façade, glazing, seals and ventilation strategy |
This boundary is important for hotel owners: a floor isolation mat is a targeted component within an acoustic system. If surveys reveal several noise types, they should be separated and treated with the appropriate construction measures.
Low-Odor Material Selection and the Indoor Environment
The supplied record describes QPLAN as a newly developed, environmentally considerate material and reports that its use also addressed odor concerns in the guestrooms. That is relevant because hotel renovation and pre-opening work often occurs under a compressed program, leaving limited time for rooms to ventilate before occupation.
However, “low odor,” “low VOC,” “environmentally friendly” and “green building” are not interchangeable claims. For procurement and handover, the design team should request the applicable emissions, chemical-content, fire-performance and durability documentation for the exact product. A low-odor material choice can support indoor environmental goals, but it does not by itself establish a green-building certification.
In suites, acoustics must support both rest and daytime use. Hard flooring around dining and circulation zones can generate impacts, while a local area rug mainly changes sound within the room. A continuous resilient layer below the floor addresses the structural path that a decorative rug alone cannot control.
Installation Quality: The Difference Between Product and Performance
Hotel floor soundproofing is detail-sensitive. A high-performing material can be undermined by a small number of rigid bridges or damaged areas, particularly when multiple trades work over the system.
Before covering the mat, the contractor and acoustic team should check:
- the substrate is clean, dry and ready for the specified build-up;
- the mat is continuous, correctly oriented and not torn or punctured;
- all seams are closed or sealed as detailed;
- perimeter isolation is continuous at walls, columns and upstands;
- pipes, drains, anchors and thresholds do not create unintended rigid bridges;
- protective layers prevent damage during screed or topping placement;
- the design load is distributed without excessive local compression;
- floor heights, door clearances and bathroom falls remain coordinated;
- no grout, mortar or finish material fills the isolation gap;
- concealed work is photographed and recorded before it is covered.
Hold-point inspections are particularly valuable in repetitive guestroom projects. Confirming the first representative rooms before full rollout can prevent the same defect from being repeated across an entire floor.
Performance Verification for Hotel Impact Sound
Because the supplied record does not include final acoustic test results, the case study does not claim a particular decibel improvement. For future projects, representative field testing provides a clear way to verify whether the completed floor and junctions meet the design target.
ISO 16283-2:2020 describes field measurement procedures for impact sound insulation in buildings using an impact source on floors or stairs. ISO 717-2:2020 provides methods for converting measurement results into single-number ratings for impact sound insulation, including the improvement provided by floor coverings or floating floors.
A practical hotel commissioning plan may include:
- baseline measurements where existing construction is being corrected;
- testing of a completed mock-up or representative guestroom pair;
- sampling across different room types and sensitive junctions;
- investigation of abnormal results for perimeter bridges or flanking paths;
- final reporting that identifies the assembly, rooms, test conditions and rating method.
The acceptance target must be established by the project’s acoustic criteria and applicable regulations. A product datasheet or laboratory test cannot replace field verification of the installed construction.
The Completed Hospitality Environment
The completed interiors present the quiet, refined atmosphere expected of an international business hotel. The critical acoustic intervention sits beneath these visible finishes. That is typical of successful isolation work: guests experience a more controlled environment without seeing the resilient layer, edge isolation or sealed junctions responsible for it.
Special room features can introduce additional water, equipment and vibration considerations. The hot-tub image is included to show the diversity of hotel room conditions; the supplied evidence does not establish that the QPLAN project scope included isolation of this equipment. Pumps, pipes and fixtures should be assessed independently when they form a significant noise source.
Lessons for Hotel Owners, Designers and Contractors
This project offers five practical lessons for hotel soundproofing:
- Start with the transmission path. Guest complaints describe the symptom; site investigation identifies the source and route.
- Match the solution to the noise type. A resilient floor is appropriate for impact and structure-borne sound, not a universal answer to airborne or mechanical noise.
- Protect the perimeter detail. The isolated area can be bypassed if screed, tile, skirting or thresholds touch surrounding construction.
- Coordinate wet areas and services early. Bathrooms, pipes, drains and door transitions create the most difficult discontinuities.
- Verify the installed assembly. Inspection and field testing provide stronger evidence than product properties alone.
Conclusion
The Courtyard by Marriott Chengdu South project demonstrates a disciplined approach to hotel impact noise reduction: survey the building, identify the source–path–receiver relationship, introduce a resilient QPLAN floor layer and protect that layer with continuous perimeter isolation and sealing.
For hotels with stacked guestrooms and hard floor finishes, the wall-edge detail is as important as the underlay itself. When product selection, junction design, trade coordination and field verification are treated as one system, floor vibration isolation can make a meaningful contribution to quieter guestrooms and a better rest environment.
Planning a new hotel or correcting impact noise in an existing property? LEEYIN can review floor assemblies, identify flanking paths and develop a project-specific soundproofing and vibration-control strategy.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is hotel floor soundproofing?
Hotel floor soundproofing uses resilient layers and isolated construction to reduce the impact energy transferred from footsteps, luggage wheels, chairs and dropped objects into a structural slab. It is especially relevant between vertically stacked guestrooms.
How does a resilient floor mat reduce impact noise?
The mat creates a compliant separation between the finished floor or topping and the supporting structure. It deforms under short impacts and reduces direct mechanical coupling, so less vibration is available to travel through the slab and radiate in another room.
Why must the floor mat be sealed at the wall perimeter?
If the floor topping, tile, grout or skirting touches the wall, it can form a rigid acoustic bridge around the resilient layer. Continuous perimeter isolation and correct sealing help preserve decoupling and close vulnerable edge gaps.
Can floor underlay solve all hotel room noise?
No. A resilient underlay primarily addresses impact and related structure-borne noise. Speech through walls, corridor noise through doors, plumbing noise, HVAC vibration and external traffic require separate investigation and appropriate acoustic measures.
How should hotel impact sound insulation be tested?
Representative room pairs can be field-tested using the procedures in ISO 16283-2:2020, with results rated using ISO 717-2:2020 where applicable. The test plan and acceptance target should match the project criteria and local requirements.
References
- Marriott International. “Courtyard by Marriott Chengdu South.” Official hotel overview and room information. https://www.marriott.com/en-us/hotels/ctucs-courtyard-chengdu-south/overview/
- LEEYIN. “成都万怡酒店隔音减振处理.” Project case record. https://www.gdliyin.com/Mobile/MArticles/cdwyjd.html
- ISO. “ISO 16283-2:2020 Acoustics — Field measurement of sound insulation in buildings and of building elements — Part 2: Impact sound insulation.” https://www.iso.org/standard/77436.html
- ISO. “ISO 717-2:2020 Acoustics — Rating of sound insulation in buildings and of building elements — Part 2: Impact sound insulation.” https://www.iso.org/standard/69867.html
