Urban Soundscapes: A Guide to Listening for Landscape Architecture and

Description

Sound and listening are intrinsically linked to how we experience and engage with places and communities. This guide puts forward a new conceptual framework of embodied affectivity that emphasises listening in urban research and design and advances new ways of knowing and making. The guide invites landscape architects and urban designers to become soundscape architects and offers practical... Read more

Sound and listening are intrinsically linked to how we experience and engage with places and communities. This guide puts forward a new conceptual framework of embodied affectivity that emphasises listening in urban research and design and advances new ways of knowing and making. The guide invites landscape architects and urban designers to become soundscape architects and offers practical advice on sound and listening applicable to each stage of a design project: from reading the environment to intervening on it.

Urban Soundscapes foregrounds listening as an affective mediator between subjects and multispecies environments, and a vehicle to think and conceptualise environmental research and design beyond prevailing visual and human-centred modes. The guide expands landscape architects’ and urban designers’ tools and skills to assess existing soundscapes, predict how those soundscapes will be altered through their designs, consider sound as a creative and active part of the design process and envisage how users might perceive and be affected by those soundscapes as they evolve in time. The volume sits in the interface of research and practice and interweaves theoretical, methodological and creative contributions from acoustic ecology, ecoacoustics, bioacoustics and sound art. Each of the design stages is illustrated through project examples that demonstrate the many advantages of incorporating attentive listening and sound into Landscape Architecture and Urban Design Practice. This book shows how incorporating listening and sounding as part of the design process promotes slow and subtle ways of practice, adds social and ecological value through the reduction of noise pollution and by monitoring the health of habitats, and enables the design of soundscapes that complement the character and design intent of a scheme and elicit joy and wonder.

The book will be of interest to practitioners and academics in landscape architecture, and other design and spatial fields such as urban design, architecture, geography and engineering, who play a primary role in the composition of the soundscape.

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Introduction Part I: Attunement 1. Landscape, soundscape 2. Affective listening 3. Tuning in 4. Tuning in practice Part II: Composition 5. Reading the soundscape 6. Reading the soundscape in practice 7. Composing the soundscape 8. Composition the soundscape in practice Part III: Performance 9. Listening to other voices 10. Performing the soundscape in practice Annex: Scores for listening and sounding in landscape architecture and urban design

Author(s)

Biography

Dr Usue Ruiz Arana is a chartered landscape architect, researcher and educator. Usue is the Degree Programme Director for the Master of Landscape Architecture at Newcastle University and teaches across design studios, professional practice and design thesis modules. Her research is focused on two interrelated strands: more-than-human conceptualisations and listening and sounding in Landscape Architecture practice. Through her research, Usue seeks to affirm non-humans as designers, and design and art as forms of research, drawing from her experimental arts methods that include soundwalks, photography and temporary installations, and her 20-year career in practice. Her keen interest in design and art as forms of research informs her role as Thinking Eye editor of the peer review Journal of Landscape Architecture.

Critics' Reviews

"Landscape architects usually think of compact greenery as the sound buffer minimizing noise pollution but we rarely think about specifically designing with sound, acoustics of space and the soundscape present at the site of intervention. This book moves us from a predominantly visual culture towards attuned, ear-thinking subjects and makes propositions on how to deal with sound in urban environments."

Urška Škerl, for Landezine

"Urban Soundscapes treats the built environment as a score. While visual tools like drawing and photography are commonplace, Arana argues that other senses are equally necessary for design. She offers particular and practical advice on how to listen, suggesting that this experience enlarges landscape's sensitivity to nonhuman city dwellers."

Landscape Architecture Magazine, August 2024

Urban Soundscapes A Guide to Listening for Landscape Architecture and Urban Design

Description

Table of Contents

Author(s)

Biography

Critics' Reviews

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