Multi-stage sound planning methodology for urban redevelopment

Abstract

Due to its local character, there is a tight link between the environmental noise issue and urban planning. Although the need for sound planning has been advocated since decades, limited information can be found on what this now means in practice. In this work, a methodology to internalize sound in the urban planning process is presented, applied to a major redevelopment project of a city ring road. The specific interest in increasing green infrastructure, and at the same time, tackling environmental noise, makes this project timely and challenging. Noise experts took part in an intense co-creation process with the spatial planning teams, where also dwellers were involved. Interactions ranged from conveying general information on environmental noise, providing solutions tailored to the local setting, qualitative expert opinions on initial plans, and assessing the applicability of uncommon noise abatements with numerical tools. The latter is important as the noise reduction potential of such measures could strongly influence the next round of spatial planning. Each planning phase should be optimized to allow maximum freedom in the next iterations. While evaluating various planning scenarios, separate acoustic goals were set for the sound exposure at dwellings, in the public space and along soft connections.