Speaker
Description
Sound is a key but overlooked component in how we experience the city. Professionals of the built environment are aware of the importance of sound, yet rarely consider it proactively in their practice. They feel ill-equipped to think about sound early in their projects, and when asked, they request a best practice guide for decision-makers. This article presents a sound design guide co-designed with urban experts to look like the urban design and planning guides they know and use in their practice. Specifically, it provides guidance on how different urban design decisions may impact the sound environment. Developed through an iterative process of document analysis, interviews and work sessions with urban experts, the guide is organized into general guidance providing contextual information and methods for readers to adapt to their own projects, as well as sample exercises of realistic situations to illustrate that information and to help readers practice thinking through the sound component of an urban project. We aimed to be more descriptive than prescriptive or exhaustive, as readers know best what their own projects will look like. The guide is meant as an opportunity for practitioners to think through the sound components of their project to strengthen them.