Speaker
Description
Traffic noise is a major environmental health burden in European cities, yet it is often addressed at a late stage in urban planning processes, mainly through legally required assessments that rely on technical indicators and do not directly incorporate human perception. The BaLSaM project developed and tested an audio visual simulation that links traffic data, auralization and urban design to support sound informed decisions at the mesoscale of neighborhoods. In collaboration with four municipalities in Germany’s Rhenish mining region, we combined parameterised urban design variants (building height and depth, block porosity, street layout) with noise simulations and listening tests in Virtual Reality (VR). This setup can be applied at the earliest stages of urban design, turning acoustic conditions and perception into explicit design parameters and allowing non experts to experience and evaluate possible acoustic futures.The contribution presents: (1) the audio visual VR framework, (2) key findings on how mesoscale urban morphology affects exposure and perceived acoustic quality; and (3) lessons learned from applying the tool in planning processes. We argue that combining noise indicators with perception based assessment provides a robust interface between acoustic science, urban design and municipal governance, and can support a shift from reactive noise control to proactive sound informed urban design.