1-s2.0-S014269x4X12000385-main (2)

7/30/2019 1-s2.0-S014269x4X12000385-main (2)

1/18

Soundscape as a design strategy forlandscape architectural praxis

Michael D. Fowler1, School of Landscape Architecture, Faculty of

Architecture and Design, RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria 3001,

Australia

In this paper I introduce the notion ofsoundscape and the terminology used by

the interdisciplinary field of soundscape studies, founded by composer and

activist R. Murray Schafer in the late 1960s. Using the example of 3 recent

landscape architecture design studios taught at RMIT University, Melbourne

Australia, I examine important theoretical concepts of soundscape studies and

how these concepts were used to guide a number of design exercises and design

projects of the studios. I also further reflect on the pedagogical aspects of

teaching soundscape to design students and the larger implications of such

methodologies for the field of design in the built environment.

2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: design education, design methods, urban design, interdisciplinary,

landscape architecture

T

hat the acoustic environment has been historically contained within the

scientific domain of room acoustics (DeBodt, 2006; Hellstrom, 2003;

Peters, 2010) has meant that the identities of acoustician and designer

have remained distinct. This separation of domains is evident when examining

the traditional role of the room acoustician as primarily concerned with the

processes of measurement and evaluation of the auditory qualities of an inte-

rior space. For an architect or designer, the larger emphasis on design as a com-

positional process that sums a number of competing streams of engagement

has often relegated auditory space to a domain generally accessed only

through the channels of acoustic consulting. This approach has foreshadowed

the possibility that at the design concept stage, novel forms that produce audi-

tory qualities might be rigorously considered by the designer. The investment

within design pedagogy of introducing concepts and ideas about the soundingenvironment (in its myriad guises and contexts) has mostly been at the service,

or as a consequence of, the seductive immediacy that visual articulations of

space provide us (Berger, 1977; Boyer, 1996; Till, 1999). As Pizarro (2009)

has observed, contemporary design education has revelled in an

absolute embrace of fantastic forms, marvellous fac ades and stunning glossy

pin-ups, though with the advent of digital technologies and the ubiquity of

computing platforms, the relegation of the auditory environment as one

Corresponding author:

Michael D. Fowler

[email protected]

www.elsevier.com/locate/destud

0142-694X $ - see front matter Design Studies -- (2012) --e--

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.destud.2012.06.001 1 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article in press as: Fowler, M. D., Soundscape as a design strategy for landscape architectural praxis,

Design Studies (2012), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.destud.2012.06.001
mailto:[email protected]://www.elsevier.com/locate/destudhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.destud.2012.06.001http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.destud.2012.06.001http://www.elsevier.com/locate/destudmailto:[email protected]

7/30/2019 1-s2.0-S014269x4X12000385-main (2)

2/18

addressed only in post-design consultation is increasingly becoming marginal-

ized by the rise in what Blesser and Salter (2007) describe as spatial auditory

awareness.

Of course there have been numerous past calls for considering architectural de-

sign as an engagement with the sensory qualities of site (Holl, Pallasmaa, &

Perez-Gomez, 2006; Lynch, 1995; Pallasmaa, 2005; Sherriden & Van Lengen,

2003; Zardini, 2006), or the appropriation of contemporary theoretical posi-

tions on site and spatiality (Deleuze & Guatari, 1980; Kahn, 1995; Lefebvre,

1991; Massumi, 2003; Rendell, 2006) as a means to drive innovation within de-

sign. Within the field of landscape architecture, the pressing contemporary

need to look beyond a reading of the landscape in purely aesthetic terms

(Bourassa, 1991; Cosgrove, 1998; Tveit, Ode, & Fry, 2006) is what Girot sug-

gests in his call for a new type of engagement with space and time. For John

B. Jackson, the urgency of what Pizarro (2009) has nominated as the ominous

environmental changes and population inversion between rural and urban

communities (United Nations, 2007) seems already implicated in his readingof the terms by which contemporary landscapes must now be conceptualized:

Landscape is not a natural feature of the environment but a synthetic

space, a man-made system of spaces superimposed on the face of the

land, functioning and evolving not according to natural laws but to serve

a communitydfor the collective character of the landscape is the one thing

that all generations and all points of view have agreed upon. A landscape

is thus a space deliberately created to speed-up or slow-down the process

of nature (Jackson, 1997, p. 304e305).

For composer, theorist and activist R. Murray Schafer, Jacksons notion of

the landscape as a malleable environment in which time is a function readily

perceived and foregrounded by the designer holds a currency that can be no-

tably traced in Schafers conception of soundscape. As a term derived from

landscape, soundscape is the designation of any human-audible sounding en-

vironment (Schafer, 1977). Drawing from Heideggers notion of place

(Heiddeger, 1971), Schafer creates the opportunity for an interdisciplinary in-

quiry into the relationship between site and the sensation of listening through

what Truax (2001) describes as the importance of sound as a mediator be-

tween human and environment, and furthermore, the notion that active lis-

tening involves an auditor embedded within the soundscape.

Soundscape studies, as a phenomenological research area, addresses what

Seamon (2000) identifies as paying attention to specific instances of auditory

phenomena in an effort to reveal general qualities and characteristics of the es-

sential nature of the phenomena and its presence and meaning for the experi-

ence of human beings. Sounds of an environment then are analogous to the

assertion ofHeiddeger (1962) that thematic space is a function of the encounter

between Dasein and localized objects. The concept of place then arises as the

2 Design Studies Vol -- No. -- Month 2012



7/30/2019 1-s2.0-S014269x4X12000385-main (2)

3/18

manner in which sound objects encountered within the homogeneous space of

Nature define a space. For Truax (2001) a soundscape represents not merely

the presence of an acoustic environment (which could be natural or simulated),

but also the potential of such an environment to communicate information to

a listener. Both Truax and Schafer have argued that, in particular, natural en-

vironments and their acoustic behaviours produce particularly meaningful ex-

periences to auditors, and thus the sounds within them constitute a type of

mediating language between listener and environment.

It is primarily from these positions that I will explore in this paper the ap-

proaches and goals in the teaching of 3 recent landscape architecture design

studios, BLINDSCAPE, Soniferous City and liminal. Though each of the stu-

dios were connected in some manner to the urban environment, their scope,

program and design outcomes remain diverse save for the fact that their pri-

mary impetus interrogated how the landscape architect might also assume

the role of soundscape architect.

1 Teaching soundscape as a design field: tactics andtechniques

1.1 The terminology of soundscape studiesThe forces that led Schafer to found a new research field in the late 1960s at

Simon Frasier University (Vancouver, Canada) that dealt with the sounding

environment as an acoustic ecology arose directly from the legacy of rapid in-

dustrialization and urban growth in the period after the Second World War.

That the environment of the city and the rising health issues of noise pollution

(Clarke & Stansfeld, 2007; Gidlof-Gunnarsson & Ohrstrom, 2007; Skanberg &Ohrstrom, 2002) was being dealt with by urban planners and architects in

a manner that Truax (2001) describes as relying on the traditional signal en-

ergy transfer model of noise engineering, relegated the concept of acoustic de-

sign within the urban context as one purely focused on the attenuation or

amelioration of sound sources. Schafer thus sought to focus on positive

soundscape awareness within the city in what Truax (2001) would later de-

scribe as an approach located within a communicational model of auditory

analysis where understanding the semiotics and cultural context of a sound-

scape played an equally important role as the investigation into the physics

of sound signals. This position then allowed Schafer to extend the notion of

soundscape into the realm of composed electro-acoustic musical works. Thesetypes of compositions are usually comprised of field recordings of natural or

urban areas, edited, manipulated or sliced together to form ecological narra-

tives that sit at the threshold between traditional musical aesthetics, sound

art and landscape aesthetics.

Schafers multidisciplinary team then was heavily influenced by the other es-

tablished electro-acoustic composers within the group, Barry Truax and

Soundscape as a design strategy 3



7/30/2019 1-s2.0-S014269x4X12000385-main (2)

4/18

Hildegard Westerkamp in particular. As such, their analytic method and de-

velopment of a new terminology for describing a taxonomy of a soundscape

draws on what Arkette (2004) has noted as a music-centric discourse. Indeed

Schafers concept of a tuning of the world implies the act of urban sound

composition, though he limits his nomenclature of sound typologies to three

primary types which describe sounds of any acoustic environmentdkeynote,

soundmark and signal. These three primary terms are central to the theory

of soundscape, as is an investigation of the auditors, or the acoustic community

of the environment under question (including their cultural, social, political or

aesthetic expectations). Thus the three sound classes ofSchafer (1977) were de-

veloped as a means to understand the particular sensory experiences that

meaningfully connect an auditor to a site.

Soundmarks are those sounds that are considered culturally significant or

deemed by an acoustic community to warrant preservation (such as church/

temple bells, town square clocks, foghorns), while keynote sounds are those

which are continuously operable within a site and form a background (e.g.,traffic, air conditioner sounds, muzak). Sound signals represent foregrounded

sounds within a soundscape and thus may dynamically change and include lo-

cal soundmarks, though as Truax (1999) and Augoyard and Torgue (2005)

have noted, within modern cities the increase in the SPL (sound pressure level)

of emergency warning signals is a direct consequence of the increased noise

floor level of urban spaces. Truax (2001) also argues that within urban envi-

ronments, sound signals are overwhelmingly generated through electro-

acoustic means and are contributing to the masking of historical soundmarks

and thus producing lo-fi (low fidelity) auditory environments.

1.2 Studio exercisesPerhaps one of the challenges in implementing the theoretical framework of

soundscape studies into the teaching of landscape design comes from the large

volume of information and listening experience required in training designers

to understand what it means to critically listen. Though prior musical knowl-

edge is unnecessary, an initial first step is asking students if they play or have

learnt to play an instrument. This may seem like it should be a valuable prior

experience for the studio participants, but often it can mean that they rely on

aesthetic listening rather than develop critical listening techniques. The critique

then ofArkette (2004) is a valid one given that design in the urban landscape is

an environment removed from the aesthetics of the electronic music studio.One of the most valuable exercises that I use throughout the course of the stu-

dio is asking the students to keep a sound diary (see Figure 1). The function of

the diary is to allow students to start developing a way in which to conceptu-

alize sound in graphic terms, and also by describing a sound using written lan-

guage. Often, exercises are drawn from A Sound Education: 100 exercises in

listening and sound-making(Schafer, 1992), which contains numerous small ex-

ercises such as what is the first sound you heard after waking, or what is your




7/30/2019 1-s2.0-S014269x4X12000385-main (2)

5/18

first sound memory. The sound diary has been valuable in encouraging stu-

dents to creatively notate sounds using a variety of methods, and thus increase

their critical listening skills. In addition to the sound diary, the technique of

soundwalking is an important primer for critical listening. Widely used within

the field of soundscape studies by Westerkamp (2006), soundwalking involves

a group of participants following a pre-agreed route through an environment

in silence. The walks are conducted every week, last around 30 min and fol-

lowed by a discussion. As Westerkamp (1974) notes:

A soundwalk is any excursion whose main purpose is listening to the en-vironment. It is exposing our ears to every sound around us no matter

where we are. We may be at home, we may be walking across a downtown

street, through the park, along on the beach; we may be sitting in a doctors

office, in a hotel lobby, in a bank; we may be shopping in a supermarket,

a department store, or a Chinese grocery store; we may be standing at the

airport, the train station, the bus stop. Wherever we go we will give our

ears priority. They have been neglected by us for a long time and, as a re-

sult, we have done little to develop an acoustic environment of good qual-

ity (Westerkamp, 1974, p. 18).

Both the sound diary and soundwalk techniques are used as a means to acti-vate new vocabularies for students so that initial descriptions of the sounding

environment within the urban context focus less on value judgements (I hate

the sound of.) and more on specific qualities of the sound in question

(I hate the sound of.because.). Using simple qualitative terms such as de-

scribing pitch as high, middle or low (with approximate Hz ranges), loudness

in approximate dB ranges, typology as natural, mechanical or human, and pe-

riodicity in terms of approximate fluctuation times in seconds or minutes,

Figure 1 Student sound diary examples.

Stephanie Kumar and Joyce Ho, 2010




7/30/2019 1-s2.0-S014269x4X12000385-main (2)

6/18

quickly enables an assessment of the difference between sound sources. A fur-

ther classification of sounds revolves around students nominating important

soundmarks, keynotes and signals of an environment, debating the relevance

of these classifications for particular acoustic communities, and then using the

acquired technical terminology to distinguish why these sounds are different

and create different responses from various acoustic communities.

That there is a real connection between the way sound behaves within an en-

vironment according to the materiality of the site in question is also an impor-

tant concept for teaching soundscape to design students. For landscape

architects in particular, the impact of topography, water, flora and fauna as

active or passive aural embellishments (Blesser & Salter, 2007) is perhaps the

strongest suggestion for the re-unification between what Carter (2003) and

Ingold (2009) see as the unnecessary separation between notions of sound-

scape and landscape. As one student from the Soniferous City studio

commented:

A useful class task we conducted was researching an acoustic quality [mine

being echoic] and considering its presence on the royal park site. This al-

lowed me to consider how certain acoustic features are accentuated in

some places rather than others as well as inform me of the structures

and materiality required to potentially utilize them in my own

intervention.

I have found that asking students to investigate particular acoustic behav-

iours like reverberation, echo and filtering, then locating sites that fit these ty-

pologies, or classifying their own sites in these terms engages them in the

important aspect of identifying the nature of sound as an ephemeral phenom-

enon intimately connected to the materials of an environment. One of the

most dramatic means for illustrating this point has been to visit a near-

anechoic chamber (a room with near-zero sound reflection). Using a simple

percussion instrument such as a Japanese wood block (mokugyo) to produce

a short and sharp high-pitch sound, any room or environment that has even

a small amount of reflective surfaces allows the sound of the instrument to

perpetuate past its short initial energy peak (the phenomena of reverbera-

tion). Playing the instrument within a near-anechoic chamber produces

only a dull thud and aptly demonstrates to students the communicative power

of surfaces to impart vital spatial auditory information.

For the BLINDSCAPE studio, surfaces and their aid to navigation were a key

aspect of the brief which asked the question of what is a park is to those who

are visually impaired, and how might landscape design be informed by the

acoustic and tactile needs of the visually impaired? Using the experiences of

a profoundly blind and visually impaired person, a large urban green wedge

in Melbourne Australia that contains the Merri Creeks route to the Yarra

river was located as a site for design interventions. As a highly varied site in




7/30/2019 1-s2.0-S014269x4X12000385-main (2)

7/18

terms of topography, program and land zones, the importance of auditory and

tactile sense marks was highlighted in a discussion with the two visually im-

paired studio guests:

Theres an air conditioner that I pass on the way to work, almost as if

its breaking down, but I hear that and understand where I am on my

route. If they fixed it, it would completely alter my navigation of thatroute.

Ive followed tactile marks, thinking I was walking to a road crossing and

ended up in a telephone booth. It seems like nothing, but for the visually

impaired that detour has confused their navigation and understanding of

where they are.

An initial exercise for students (see Figure 2) was to investigate the auditory

and tactile nature of the site while blindfolded in order to evaluate its ease of

navigation for the visually impaired or profoundly blind. Using analytic

methods that tracked topography, surface texture and auditory featuressuch as the location of soundmarks and keynotes, a sensory mapping repre-

senting those pertinent features for navigation of the site enabled the quick

evaluation and location of possible intervention points.

2 Notation and beyond notationThat students are increasingly becoming reliant on digital tools for the repre-

sentation of design concepts and ideas is an important trend in modern peda-

gogical approaches. When considering the acoustic environment, there is

inevitability that digital tools will be required in the capturing of data. For

all of the design studios I have taught, a most important element is the training

of students in audio capture equipment for recording the acoustic conditions

of a site. The typical tools used include hardware and software devices and the

appropriate formats and editing approaches that make best use of the infor-

mation for designers.

Field recordings of audio information can nowadays be completely achieved

through a mobile phone, though there are distinct disadvantages of this ap-

proach. The primary difficulties in using an iPhone or smart phone for audio

recording comes from issues of fidelity and spatial soundfield rendering. That

there are such high standards required for the presentation of imagery, dia-

grams, photos, models etc., within design schools is an equally useful argu-ment applicable to audio recording. The higher the fidelity, the more

information present. As such, training students in using proper stereo micro-

phone techniques (such as ORTF2), using high sample rates (48 kHz) and wav

formats (rather than compressed mp3) allows for stereo simulations and re-

productions of captured soundscapes that more readily communicate mean-

ingful spatial information. Introducing other recording technologies such

binaural head and ambisonic B-format are also useful though such formats




7/30/2019 1-s2.0-S014269x4X12000385-main (2)

8/18

Figure 2 Merri creek mapping exercise from BLINDSCPAE studio.

Jack Tupper, 2010




7/30/2019 1-s2.0-S014269x4X12000385-main (2)

9/18

require specialized editing suites or multi-channel playback environments

for soundfield reproduction. A basic aim of the studios I have taught

has been to enable students to capture a stereo soundfield from a site in high

fidelity, digitize the soundfiles, apply simple editing techniques (fade in/out,

multi-track editing, mastering) with freeware audio software and conduct sim-

ple acoustic analysis on the soundfiles (e.g., analyse the sonogram/spectrum

and dB).

In addition to capturing soundfields, obtaining sound pressure levels (SPL) of

a site can also be useful in understanding the general acoustic conditions, and

in particular, when using SPLA weightings,3 to gauge the loudness levels in

psychoacoustic terms. But how this information becomes manifested and dis-

seminated through a visual language of mappings or diagrams that are engag-

ing to a designer rather than a scientist is often an obstacle that needs much

negotiation, patience and re-working. Most approaches by students have

seemed to flow into two streams of graphical representation: the suggestive

or qualitative diagram (see Figure 3), or the quantitative mapping (seeFigure 4). Both can be effective in describing the general acoustic conditions

of a site, though I encourage augmented presentations of these types of map-

pings through the use of stereo soundfield recordings to highlight particular

acoustic aspects within the site.

Figure 3 Royal park sound diagram from Soniferous City studio. Jamie McHutchison, 2009




7/30/2019 1-s2.0-S014269x4X12000385-main (2)

10/18

3 Experimental design actions in the designing processThe path to design implementation when integrating ideas about soundscape

is often best served through generative design experiments in various media.

The criticism of Carter (2003) that the focus of soundscape studies has split

into those concerned with electro-acoustic composition using advanced tech-

nologies for the capture of soundfields, and those activists involved in preserv-

ing threatened soundscapes is a useful observation for design pedagogy in thatit allows landscape architecture students to challenge what Mags et al. (2006)

and Leus (2011) note as the lack of a suitable acoustic framework when urban

planning models are under consideration. A particularly useful exercise then

for students is to compose a short 3 min soundscape composition based on au-

ditory samples from their site. By using readily available freeware audio edit-

ing tools (like Audacity), the exercise seeks to give the opportunity for students

to engage their aural imagination through the question: what might be an

ideal soundscape design for this site, and what will be the social impact of

your design.

The results of such an exercise have been mixed. The impact of electronic mu-

sic within popular culture and those commonly available tools such as Garage

Band have created a situation in which music production technology has been

democratized. Because of this there is a real difficulty for some students in sep-

arating out ideas about musical sound and environmental sound. Using the

compositions of Truax and Westerkamp though is an important foil for this

exercise in that compositions such as Into the Labyrinth (a work generated

Figure 4 Melbourne CBD SPLA diagram from liminal studio.Natarsha Lamb, 2010




7/30/2019 1-s2.0-S014269x4X12000385-main (2)

11/18

from field recordings of urban areas in India) and Pacific Fanfare (a number of

sound scenes composed from 10 soundmarks of Vancouver) seem to highlight

for students the potential for connecting listener to sound source and environ-

mental context as a landscape brief. But inevitably some students end up cre-

ating compositions focused wholly on musical parameters (like superimposed,

artificial repetitious melodic patterns or beats), but the most successful compo-

sitions attend to the particular qualities of the site in question, highlighting,

amplifying or developing soundmarks or signals that are already prevalent

in the environment.

To think specifically about the connection of sound behaviours in a site as

a function of the ratio between absorptive and reflective materials, their geom-

etries and the types of sources actively contributing to its acoustic identity can

also highlight the often overlooked qualities of the urban environment. Asking

landscape architecture students to radically re-think the fabric of the city is

perhaps not a new approach in light of the recent theories of landscape urban-

ism (Waldheim, 2006), though to radicalize the geometric and sound absorp-tive properties of space that produce readily identifiable acoustic signatures

provides an impetus for testing the limits by which soundscape design may in-

filtrate urban design (see Figure 5).

That topography can be an important tool for the design of soundscapes

through its ability to filter, attenuate and hide sound sources was a particular

focus of the BLINDSCAPE studio whose site was the Merri Creek green

wedge located in suburban Melbourne. The abundance of a natural environ-

ment housing such diverse landscape typologies as open woodland to wetlands

all in close contact with multiple planning zones, from light industrial to

Figure 5 Design concept for Melbourne CBD from liminal studio showing radical landscape intervention through topographic and material

means. Christina Touloupus, 2010




7/30/2019 1-s2.0-S014269x4X12000385-main (2)

12/18

residential, allowed students to interrogate both the existing connection be-

tween soundscape conditions and topographic features, as well as how a radi-

cal change in topography might allow for design interventions that produced

particular acoustic qualities (see Figure 6). By developing a set of site-specific

design and analysis tools that would manipulate topography to generate par-

ticular acoustic conditionsdsuch as echo or reverberation through enclosure

with hard materials, sound absorption and filtering with soft landscape ob-

jects, plantings and green wallsddesign interventions were able to take on

a multi-functional roles beyond catering to the pure aesthetic considerations

of landscape form.

4 Communicating soundscape designsPerhaps a difficulty in using the theory of soundscape as the basis for generat-

ing landscape architecture is the reliance on particular visual modes of com-

munication and dissemination within the field of design. Though the studios

Figure 6 (a) Conceptual design of localized landscape elements for sound absorption. (b) Site plan of topographic interventions for generating

soundscape manipulation (absorption, reverberation, filtering). Simon Meade, 2010




7/30/2019 1-s2.0-S014269x4X12000385-main (2)

13/18

I have taught have sought to develop listening skills as an aid to conceptual-

izing the power of acoustic interventions to drive novel forms of landscape ar-

chitecture, the ways in which one can experience a sense of the design outside

of its 2-dimensional representation or 3-dimensional model is always difficult.

Oral presentations obviously aid in the telling of the narrative of the students

work, and in some cases using onomatopoeia in the visual language of describ-

ing the function of the design can generate a more immediate impact on the

auditory qualities of the design intent (see Figure 7). Often designs require

a greater deal of verbal presentation lest the subtle acoustic qualities of the de-

sign be overshadowed by the tendency to focus on the visual presentation of

the concept. For the example, in Figure 8, a student from the BLINDSCAPE

studio created a subtle means of acoustic way-finding for visually-impaired

visitors to Merri Creek. By using a combination of distinctive materials at par-

ticular entrance/exit points to the site, the reflective acoustic behaviours of

stone and paving were combined with the filtering qualities of offset wooden

walls that partitioned the path from the nearby sound sources emanating

from the creek. Visitors who are visually-impaired, and especially those whouse a cane, are provided with a distinct acoustic typology as a means to con-

struct an aural memory (a common technique used by the visually impaired).

Given that the reverberation of these entrance/exits points sits in dramatic

Figure 7 Design concept for Royal Park from Soniferous City studio showing sound generating devices embedded in roadway and footpath as

a means to diversify the keynote sounds of the traffic. Jamie McHutchinson, 2009




7/30/2019 1-s2.0-S014269x4X12000385-main (2)

14/18

relief to the qualities experienced in the rest of the site provides a subtle, yet

tell-tale acoustic signature that is integrated into a larger visual aesthetic re-

garding the landscape as a whole.

5 ReflectionsThe limitations of the studios I have discussed in this paper have come not so

much from the inability of students to engage with sound as a parameter for

landscape design, but their overwhelming desire to create auditory simulations

that match the levels of detail achievable in current modelling and illustration

softwares. As one student comments:

The liminal studio was great for introducing soundscape and how it can be

another aspect for considering in designing, but not being able to really

hear what my design would sound like, and only being able to make a ap-

proximation using Audacity, or using sound recording from site was

disappointing.

This is perhaps an aspect that design schools will inevitable be facing if sound-

scape or acoustic qualities become more readily addressed in design peda-

gogy. Outside of softwares specifically used for room acoustic modelling

(such as those used in testing concert hall designs etc.) there are currently

Figure 8 Design concept for exit/entrance to Merri Creek from BLINDSCAPE studio.

Jack Tupper, 2010




7/30/2019 1-s2.0-S014269x4X12000385-main (2)

15/18

only limited and very expensive resources regarding acoustic simulation of

outdoor environments. A few options exist, such as the software Odeon,

though to utilize these within landscape design requires extensive introduc-

tory training and the configuring of the software for open environments.

Until there is a greater need, or greater investment in tools for landscape ar-

chitects that situate acoustic modelling directly into more common modellers

such as Rhinoceros3D or AutoCAD, a reliance on a basic knowledge of the

behaviour of sound and ways in which it can be managed must first be

embraced.

But the increasing proliferation of electro-acoustic sound diffusion in urban

areas has also given design students a new area in which to explore. There

seems to be an increasing density not only of urban computing via screens,

visual projection or smart fac ades within modern cities (McGuire, 2008),

but also loudspeakers and PA devices. Perhaps an unintended influence of

using the Schafer, Truax and Westerkamps conceptualization of sound design

is that some students simply create electro-acoustic soundscapes, to be playedback over multiple loudspeakers, and utilized for any environment. The diffi-

culty of these types of project designs relates not simply to the notion that de-

sign praxis within the built environment must engage in some deeper notion

about site, ecology, program or social function, but that the role of landscape

architects as custodians of the landscape is to similarly understand the impact

of technology as a shaping device for societys relationship to the environment

(Church, 2008). Given that the whole notion of soundscape itself seeks to del-

icately balance what Franklin (2000) notes as the impact of technology as an

opportunity and a problem for urban sound environments, landscape design

that simply presents sound art installations within the urban environment

may suffer from what Arkette (2004) identifies as the tendency for acoustic

ecologists to only superficially engage with the qualities of urban soundscapes,

and moreover ignore the expectations and needs of the local acoustic

community.

It is perhaps what Pizarro (2009) notes as the rapidly changing urban environ-

ment, new population density inversions (United Nations, 2007) and the im-

mediate impact on health and well-being of a noisy future that remains the

greatest argument for assimilating the next generation of architecture and de-

sign students with a knowledge of strategies for shaping an acoustic environ-

ment. That modern cities are increasingly finding themselves in greatermechanized densities is evidenced in the suggestions by Gidlof-Gunnarsson

and Ohrstrom (2007) that, it has been estimated that about 80 million (ap-

proximately 20) of the European Unions population suffer from noise levels

considered unacceptable (above 65 dB in so-called black area) and an addi-

tional 170 million are living in grey areas exposed to noise levels between

55 and 65 dB Additionally, there have been numerous studies (Clarke &

Stansfeld, 2007; Skanberg & Ohrstrom, 2002) into the link between stress




7/30/2019 1-s2.0-S014269x4X12000385-main (2)

16/18

effects manifested in physiological systems and psychosocial behavioural pat-

terns, which also indicate that the effect of the quality of the urban soundscape

is an important contemporary health issue.

Certainly, that design within the urban environment must integrate myriad no-

tions about site, mobility and social concerns remains a constant reminder of

the complexity of forces that shape the qualities of the built environment. How

exemplary urban design models will negotiate such qualities when delivered

via the traditional approaches to urban design praxis may be an increasingly

difficult position to sustain, particularly in light of evidence that suggests the

soundscape of cities as becoming an increasingly important aspect for consid-

eration. Perhaps a strength then of the studios I have discussed here is not so

much the absolute accuracy by which the acoustic qualities of a design can be

measured or disseminated, but the opportunities that arise for students when

considering the landscape as capable of constructing particular acoustic qual-

ities which may consequently shape and form new social relations.

Notes1. Fachgebiet Audiokommunikation, Technische Universitat Berlin, 10587 Berlin,

Germany.

ReferencesArkette, S. (2004). Sounds like city. Theory, Culture & Society, 21(1), 159e168.

Augoyard, J. F., & Torgue, H. (2005). Sonic experience: a guide to everyday

sounds. In A. McCarthy, D. Parquette, & (Trans.). (Eds.). Montreal:

McGill-Queens University Press.

Berger, J. (1977). Ways of seeing. London: Penguin Books.

Blesser, B., & Salter, R. L. (2007). Spaces speak are you listening? Experiencing au-

ral architecture. Cambridge (MA): MIT Press.

Bourassa, S. (1991). The aesthetics of landscape. London: Bell Haven Press.

Boyer, M. C. (1996). CyberCities: Visual perception in the age of electronic commu-

nication. New York: Princeton University Press.

Carter, P. (2003). Auditing acoustic ecology. Soundscape, the Journal of Acoustic

Ecology, 4(2), 12e13.

Church, K. (2008). Fluid city: the customisation, mobilisation and acceleration of

public space. Kerb, 16, 72e74.

Clarke, C., & Stansfeld, S. A. (2007). The effect of transportation noise on health

and cognitive development: a review of recent evidence. International Journal

of Comparative Psychology, 20(2), 145e

158.Cosgrove, D. E. (1998). Social formation and symbolic landscape. Wisconsin: Uni-

versity of Wisconsin Press.

DeBodt, K. (2006). Digital resonance: sound parameters in architectural design.

In K. Oosterhuis, & L. Feireiss (Eds.), Game, set, and match: On computer

games, advanced geometries, and digital technologies. Rotterdam: Episode.

Deleuze, G., & Guatari, F. (1980). Mille Plateaux. Paris: Editions de Minuit.

Franklin, U. (2000). Silence and the notion of the commons. Soundscape, the Jour-

nal of Acoustic Ecology, 1(2), 14e17.




7/30/2019 1-s2.0-S014269x4X12000385-main (2)

17/18

Gidlof-Gunnarsson, A., & Ohrstrom, E. (2007). Noise and well-being in urban

residential environments: the potential role of perceived availability to nearby

green areas. Landscapes and Urban Planning, 83(2e3), 115e126.

Girot, C. Growing with chaos. Kerb, 16, 24e29.

Heiddeger, M. (1962). Being and time. In J. Macquarrie, E. Robinson, & (Trans.).

(Eds.). New York: Harper & Row Publishers.

Heiddeger, M. (1971). Building, dwelling, thinking. In A. Hostadter, & (Trans.).

(Eds.), Poetry, language, thought. New York: Harper Colophon Books.Hellstrom, B. (2003). Noise design: Architectural modelling and the aesthetics of ur-

ban acoustic space. Goteborg: Bo Ejeby Forlag.

Holl, S., Pallasmaa, J., & Perez-Gomez, A. (2006). Questions of perception: Phe-

nomenology of architecture. San Francisco: William Stout Publishers.

Ingold, T. (2009). Against soundscape. In A. Carlyle (Ed.), Autumn leaves: Sound

and the environment in artist practice (pp. 10e13). Paris: Double-Entendre.

Jackson, J. B. (1997). The world itself. In H. L. Horowitz (Ed.), Landscape in

sight. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Kahn, A. (1995). Constructing knowledge of site. In Defining the urban condition:

Accelerating change in the geography of power. Washington: ACSA Press.

Lefebvre, H. (1991). The production of space. In D. Nicholson-Smith, & (Trans.).

(Eds.). Oxford: Blackwell.Leus, M. (2011). The soundscape of cities: a new layer in city renewal. In

C. A. Brebbia, & E. Beriato (Eds.), Sustainable development and planning V.

Southampton: WIT Press.

Lynch, K. (1995). City sense and city design: Writings and projects of Kevin

Lynch. In T. Banerjee, & M. Southworth (Eds.). Boston: MIT Press.

McGuire, S. (2008). The media city: Media, architecture and urban space. London:

Sage.

Mags, A., Cox, T., Moore, G., Croxford, B., Refaee, M., & Sharples, S. (2006).

Sustainable soundscapes: noise policy and the urban experience. Urban Stud-

ies, 43(13), 2385e2398.

Massumi, B. (2003). Parables of the virtual. Durham (NC): Duke University Press.

Pallasmaa, J. (2005). The eyes of the skin: Architecture and the senses. London:

Academy Editions.

Peters, B. (2010). Acoustic Performance as a design Driver: sound simulation and

Parametric modeling using smart Geometry. International Journal of Architec-

tural Computing, 3(8), 337e358.

Pizarro, R. E. (2009). Teaching to understand the urban sensorium in the digital

age: lesson from the studio. Design Studies, 30, 272e286.

Rendell, J. (2006). Art and architecture: A place between. London: I. B. Tauris &

Co. Ltd.

Schafer, R. M. (1977). The soundscape: Our sonic environment and the tuning of the

world. Rochester (NY): Destiny Books.

Schafer, R. M. (1992). A sound education: 100 exercises in listening and sound-mak-

ing. Ontario: Arcana Editions.

Seamon, D. (2000). A way of seeing people and place: phenomenology inenvironment-behavior research. In S. Wapner, J. Demick, T. Yamamoto, &

J. Minami (Eds.), Theoretical perspectives in environment-behavior research

(pp. 157e178). New York: Plenum.

Sherriden, T., & Van Lengen, K. (2003). Hearing architecture. Journal of Archi-

tectural Education, 57(2), 37e44.

Skanberg, A., & Ohrstrom, E. (2002). Adverse health effects in relation to urban

residential soundscapes. Journal of Sound and Vibration, 250(1), 151e155.

Till, J. (1999). The vanity of form. The Journal of Architecture, 4(1), 47e54.




7/30/2019 1-s2.0-S014269x4X12000385-main (2)

18/18

Truax, B. (1999). The handbook for acoustic ecology. Burnaby (B.C.): Cambridge

Street Publishing.

Truax, B. (2001). Acoustic communication. Westport (CT): Ablex Publishing.

Tveit, M., Ode, A., & Fry, G. (2006). Key concepts in a framework for analysing

visual landscape character. Landscape Research, 31(3), 229e255.

United Nations. (2007). State of world population, 2007: Unleashing the potential

of urban growth. New York: UNFPA. Available from. http://www.unfpa.org/

swp/2007/presskit/pdf/sowp2007_eng.pdf.Waldheim, C. (2006). The landscape urbanism reader. New York: Princeton Archi-

tectural Press.

Westerkamp, H. (1974). Soundwalking. Sound Heritage, 3(4), 18e24.

Westerkamp, H. (2006). Soundwalking as ecological Practice. In K. Torigoe,

T. Imada, & K. Hiramatsu (Eds.), The East Meets West in acoustic ecology

(pp. 84e89). Hirosaki: Hirosaki University.

Zardini, M. (Ed.). (2006). Sense of the city, an alternative approach to urbanism.

Montreal: Canadian Centre for Architecture.

Endnotes

Short for Office de Radiodiffusion Television Francaise, a stereo microphone

arrangement in which two cardiod microphones are spaced approximately

17 cm apart at an angle of 110.

Given that human hearing is relatively insensitive at frequencies below 100 Hz and

compresses at sounds above 5 kHz, A-weighting of SPL (notated as SPLA)

involves the application of filtering curves to allow for the most accurate

method for measuring perceived loudness of a sound source.

http://www.unfpa.org/swp/2007/presskit/pdf/sowp2007_eng.pdfhttp://www.unfpa.org/swp/2007/presskit/pdf/sowp2007_eng.pdfhttp://www.unfpa.org/swp/2007/presskit/pdf/sowp2007_eng.pdfhttp://www.unfpa.org/swp/2007/presskit/pdf/sowp2007_eng.pdf

Documents

1-s2.0-S014269x4X12000385-main (2)