Sound Cities

• Soundscape is an overlooked aspect of sustainable urban development and resilient cities. Particularly, soundscape is associated with urban open space quality and urban design. It concerns the acoustic environment as perceived or experienced and/or understood by people in context. It includes all sounds – positive as well as negative. Unlike current management of the acoustic environment, soundscape is not primarily about reducing sound levels below an acceptable guideline value. Rather, it is about what sounds belong to a place. From a heritage perspective it is important to ask what soundscapes present generations create and transfer to future generations. How do people want the city to sound? This relates to architecture and the urban infra structure, such as location of buildings, roads and parks, including the activities they entail. Much of what present generations create is durable and will affect many generations to come, by limiting the number of degrees of freedom at their disposal. This paper presents an early report on the Sound Cities projects that investigate how soundscapes may be consciously and expediently designed, as well as what we should mean with soundscape quality. For example, what is the relationship between soundscape and human activity in the city, or between soundscape and different kinds of sound sources? The aim of the projects is to promote sustainable urban development, quality of life, as well as health and well-being among urban residents, today and in the future. The projects include in situ questionnaires, psychoacoustic listening experiments, as well as machine learning, based on music information retrieval technology.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Psykologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Psychology (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

soundscape

sustainable urban development

urban open space quality

urban design

heritage

Psychology

psykologi

Publikations- och innehållstyp

vet (ämneskategori)

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