Listening to a town: The urban soundscape as an image of the city

Abstract

City dwellers often have a visual representation of their town. They are able to identify some areas from pictures. But, urban sounds are also a characteristic part of the city’s identity. A previous paper [C. Semidor, Proceedings 20th PLEA, Santiago, Chile (2003)] shows the possibility to distinguish the soundscape of a ‘‘car-free’’ Sunday from the soundscape of a Sunday with cars. The proposed method based on the so-called soundwalk could be very illustrative for this suggestion. These soundwalks are sound recordings made with a ‘‘dummy’’ head and a DAT recorder, on walks following a trajectory with different urban forms and, in this case study, in different towns where a tramway is running. The acoustical images (time versus frequency graphs) of the sound signals could be a representation of these soundscapes. This type of information could help urban planners and other town designers to improve the acoustic comfort of the cities. The objective of this approach is to valorize what is pleasant and agreeable in the urban sound environment.