Soundscape planning for mixed use urban communities

Abstract

Mixed use urban communities with a variety of retail, dining, entertainment, commercial, and residential occupants on one building or within several blocks of each other often bring a vitality to cities and towns. Careful planning and design are needed for the different uses to maintain sonic compatibility with each other over a 24-hour day. There are acoustical challenges in measuring amplified entertainment sounds due to the rapid succession of individual notes and words in pieces of music or trains of speech. Sounds of vehicles with straight pipes revving engines as they drive through a main street is another acoustical challenge. The enclosed walls of glass, metal and masonry of high-rise building create sound reflections and reverberation similar to what occurs in closed rooms reducing the decay of sounds with distance. Soundscape measurements, computer model studies of urban sound flows, implementing acoustical strategies as part of a design and planning process and addressing the challenges of rapidly time varying sounds measured by LAeq’s are among the methods that are often implemented to address these issues. A case study of acoustical design for a revitalizing urban area is presented with its challenges, design processes, and initial strategies discussed.