Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning
Abstract
What we hear plays a crucial role in our experience of the outdoors; however, cities have long been polluted with unwanted sound levels. Semi-open spaces are most critically affected yet also provide spatial capabilities to lessen the perceived impact of noise. In response, soundscape studies view sound as a resource to be explored rather than inhibited, placing the listener's perception and awareness at the forefront of evaluating sonic environments. The research presented in this dissertation aims to understand the relationships between soundscape evaluations and design preferences for the outdoor environment, particularly in semi-open spaces. A user-interactive approach exposes the participant to visual representation methods from a reflection of the literature on the perceptual process of sound stimuli and historical modes of analysing sound. The sonic and spatial characteristics studied will be drawn from a series of soundwalks that evaluate semi-open spaces. The research is thus interested in discrepancies found in soundscape appraisals due to visual differences in the representations, including visual renders, raytracing diagrams, and heatmap animations.
The results confirm the influence of visual preferences on soundscape judgments and further reveal the impact of listener sensitivities to sounds. The findings respond to suggestions that affective responses to the outdoor environment can be described dimensionally, which strongly correlate with participant design responses perceived to improve the sonic environment. Promoting user engagement and soundscapes analysis may provide new data on personal expectations and preferences in the design workflow. For this reason, perhaps designers can develop ways towards a holistic approach that can communicate the qualities of the environment to the participant and, in turn, place the end user at the centre of the workflow, delicately balancing the built environment with the overlap of daily activities
