Closed concrete staircase or open steel-wood staircase

An open staircase in this floor plan makes the entire house noisier. If children live in the house, I would now prefer the closed staircase and forego a nice appearance. We have lived for almost 18 years in a terraced house with an open spiral bolt staircase made of steel with wooden steps. This is how we experienced childhood from the beginning to late teenage years. It wasn’t practical when children needed to sleep and we had to be quiet downstairs at the same time, when children listened to music that we didn’t want to hear ourselves, when active togetherness turned into a noise avoidance exercise... In the new house, there is an open staircase - there are just two of us and we only have one living/sleeping room on two levels anyway. The staircase will be an absolute eye-catcher.

Purely from an aesthetic perspective, I would always prefer an open staircase, but with your floor plan, if children are present, I would put the appearance aside and choose the quieter option.

3 children's rooms are upstairs and that is my concern: appearance is one thing but the acoustics are not unimportant.

Practical when you also find the acoustically better option visually more appealing

So we are now probably going for the middle ground after all. No wall in the middle, steel/wood staircase spiral but with closed risers. Hopefully a good compromise between appearance and acoustics,...