Remastering the Soundscape by John Anderson
re¡mas¡ter
verb The process of taking an image, recorded sound, or music and enhancing it to improve the experiential quality.
Sound is a vital component to architectural design. It is a significant contributing factor in making spaces come alive. Unfortunately, in modern day architecture sound is often an afterthought in the design process. If it is even considered at all it is only regarded in the sense of how to reduce, isolate, and absorb sound rather than to celebrate it and use it to enhance the user’s experience. Sound gives space quality. While our visual field focuses us in a forward direction, our aural awareness is omnidirectional and opens us to a world beyond while at the same time locating us in space. Sound impacts in meaningful ways that sight cannot. It puts us in the middle of activity and makes us aware of our surroundings. Chicago is a loud city. Curtain walls and canyons created by the tall Chicago buildings impact these already powerful sounds of the cityscape by reflecting and amplifying them. So, what if we could see the sounds within our built environment? Would these forms be desirable and enticing to engage with? Or would we find them frightening and would they make us want to flee from them? What sort of experiential quality could be had by interacting with such forms? It is my belief that by giving form and spatial quality to these sounds will help us to understand how sound impacts our environment and creates the possibility to refine existing urban conditions to create a more enjoyable, melodic, socially interactive, and experiential sonic environment.
To actualize this thesis, I started by analyzing the soundscape of downtown Chicago by making field recordings of three selected locations—the “L” train along Wabash Ave, the Riverwalk, and Millennium Park around The Bean. Doing so allowed me to identify and better understand the sonic identity of Chicago. The field recordings of each site were conducted once a week on the same day of the week between 9am, 12pm, and again at 4pm for a span of three weeks. This generated a healthy sample of the sonic activity of each site. I then mixed the tracks of the audio files for each site to create an average of their activity. Using a Grasshopper script that I created, along with the audio program Max/MSP, I was able to transmit the audio files of the field recordings into Grasshopper which gave a 3-D depiction of the recorded city sounds. I then selected samples of the created sound forms to generate an index cataloging of how the soundscape of those areas of the city changed throughout the day.
L-Train 9am
Track Length - 10:00
0:25 - L-Train
2:06 - Cars
3:24 - Wind
4:31 - L-Train
5:28 - People
6:24 - L-Train
6:48 - L-Train, Truck backing up
8:20 - Car Horns, People, L-Train
9:10 - L-Train
L-Train 12pm
Track Length - 10:00
0:27 - L-Train, People, Cars
1:08 - People, Cars
1:54 - L-Train, People
2:44 - L-Train, Cars, People
4:40 - People
6:32 - Cars, L-Train, Delivery Truck
7:40 - L-Train
9:02 - L-Train
9:36 - Music, Cars, People
L-Train 4pm
Track Length - 10:02
0:15 - Wind, Car Horns, L-Train
1:05 - L-Train
1:28 - People, L-Train
2:21 - L-Train
3:17 - People, L-Train
4:05 - Wind, Car Horns
5:16 - Cars, Truck, People
7:54 - L-Train, Cars
9:20 - People, L-Train, Car Horns
Riverwalk 9am
Track Length - 10:01
0:12 - Siren, Boat, Bridge Traffic
1:10 - People, Bridge Traffic, Wind
2:49 - Boat, Wind, Bridge Traffic
4:10 - Wind, Bridge Traffic, People
5:58 - Bridge Traffic, Geese
7:30 - Geese, Bridge Traffic
8:31 - Wind, People, Bridge Traffic
8:59 - Seagulls, Wind, Bridge Traffic
9:43 - Bridge Traffic
Riverwalk 12pm Track Length - 10:01
0:42 - Bridge Traffic
1:54 - Bridge Traffic
2:46 - People, Bridge Traffic
3:44 - Bridge Traffic
4:24 - Wind, People, Bridge Traffic
5:44 - Bridge Traffic
6:30 - Wind, People, Bridge Traffic
8:18 - People, Bridge Traffic
9:26 - Siren, People, Bridge Traffic
Riverwalk 4pm
Track Length - 10:01
0:05 - People, Wind
1:33 - People, Boat
1:59 - Boat, Wind
3:12 - Boat, Music, Bridge Traffic
4:49 - Bridge Traffic
5:26 - Wind, People, Bridge Traffic
6:55 - Singing, Metal Clanging, Bridge Traffic
8:24 - People, Wind, Bridge Traffic
9:37 - People, Wind, Bridge Traffic
Millennium Park (The Bean) 9am Track Length - 10:01
0:07 - Wind, Chainsaw, Birds, People
1:02 - Wind, People
2:03 - Wind, Chainsaw
3:33 - Chainsaw, Birds, Wind, Distant Traffic
4:34 - Birds, Distant Traffic
5:56 - People, Distant Traffic
7:10 - People, Distant Traffic
8:38 - Birds, People, Distant Traffic
9:33 - Distant Traffic, People
Millennium Park (The Bean) 12pm Track Length - 10:01
0:03 - People, Distant Traffic
1:09 - People, Music
1:49 - Music, People, Ice Skating
4:13 - People, Music, Distant Traffic
5:25 - People, Music, Ice Skating
7:17 - Music, Distant Traffic
8:02 - People, Music
8:41 - People, Music
9:51 - People, Faint Music
Millennium Park (The Bean) 4pm Track Length - 10:01
0:27 - Wind, People
3:47 - Music, Street Drummers
8:03 - People, Street Drummers, Music
1:55 - People, Distant Traffic
4:36 - Music, Ice Skating, Street Drummers
9:00 - Music, Distant Traffic
2:45 - Music
6:23 - Music, People
9:50 - People
Spatial Analysis of Sound - Latitudinal View Framework and slivers merged together creating the sound form.
Sound form has been sliced into individual slivers to denote how rhythm is formed within the model. Pitch and volume swells are also observed in how the silvers undulate in a vertical axis. As the sliver progress reverberation is observed in how the slivers begin to overlap and and merge together.
Framework of the sound form generated by time and frequency of the recorded sound, with frequency being the cycle rate of the physical wavelength.
Spatial Analysis of Sound - Longitudinal View Framework and slivers merged together creating the sound form.
Sound form has been sliced into individual slivers to denote how rhythm is formed within the model. Pitch and volume swells are also observed in how the silvers undulate in a vertical axis. As the sliver progress reverberation is observed in how the slivers begin to overlap and and merge together.
Framework of the sound form generated by time and frequency of the recorded sound, with frequency being the cycle rate of the physical wavelength.
Spatial Analysis of Sound - Perspective View
Perspective view of sound form showing the merging of the framework with the slivers.
In order to bring this project to life and to create a stronger understanding of our sonic environment, I decided that these virtual 3-D forms would be projected into the environment using augmented reality (AR) so that users could have a more immersive and interactive experience with them through the use of AR phone apps, or AR headset.