The research aims to identify the technical foundations and considerations of designing suspended ceilings such as acoustic and fire performance. In particular, the research seeks to answer a critical question: What are the design considerations and evaluation criteria of suspended ceilings? Additionally, the research presents a comprehensive review of the performance of suspended ceilings and proposes a detailed set of design considerations for such ceilings.

The research focuses on studying the indoor suspended ceiling in the Middle East, as there are considerable design limitations in this region such as its arid environment. Despite the improvement of the design outputs during the last decade, there are still many shortcomings in the design of suspended ceilings that limits the solutions that meet the spatial needs of many buildings.

The research has three sections: The first section investigates how architects tend to design suspended ceilings; The second section examines the typologies of suspended ceilings; Finally, the third section presents the standards for designing modular ceilings provided by international codes.