The Listening Dimension: Spatial Awareness of Sound Architecture

THE LISTENING DIMENSION: SPATIAL AWARENESS OF SOUND ARCHITECTURE

by Chow Wing Nam Catherine Supervised by: Prof. Adam Fingrut

A thesis submitted to the School of Architecture, CUHK in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Architecture School of Architecture The Chinese University of Hong Kong May 2019

Contents

00 Abstract 01 Introduction / 1

Phenomenology and Sound Architecture

/ 2

Spatial Experience and Sound Architecture

/ 3

Sound and Human Behaviour

/ 4

Aims and Objectives

02

Literature Review

/ 1

The Past and Present of Sound Architecture

/ 2

Sound Art

/ 3

Sound Architecture

/ 4

Acoustic properties, psycho-acoustic and physio-acoustic

/ 5

Visual and aural differences in spatial awareness

/ 6

Mechanism of Sound

/ 7

Types of Sound

/ 8

Theoretical Framework and Research Question

03 Methodology

2

/ 1

Adaption of Literature and Theoretical Framework

/ 2

Form Analysis in Acoustic Space

/ 3

Tools for Analysis

/ 4

Form Analysis

/ 5

Physical Installation Analysis

04

Experiment & Imagination

/ 1

Volumetric geometry exploration

05

Site Selection

06

Design Process

07

Final Design

/ 1

Design Intention

Appendix Bibliography

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Acknowledgement

First, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Prof. Adam Fingrut, my thesis supervisor, for his professional guidance, inspiration idea and critiques.

Also, the constructive comments and critiques by Prof. Kristof Crolla and all other professors during thesis reviews are essential for my work.

Moreover, I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to Dr. Joseph Francis Wong from my Bachelor degree, who had given me advice and assistance of this thesis.

This thesis would not have been possible without the help of so many people in so many ways. The excellent guidance from teachers, assistance from friends, especially the support from family.

Thank you all.

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Abstract Sound is a series of vibrations for an interlude of time by a medium.

Architecture is the vessel for the intangible experience of sound. The perception of dimension and orientation could be sensed through sound reverberation in spaces of architecture. It is humans’ first ability to identify the depth, volume and spaciousness by acoustic due to the evolutionary forces of survival.

Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer delivers his concerns about modern architecture are” designs for the deaf.” Apparently, acoustic is often neglected because of the inequality of five senses, especially the domination of sight. The perception of space is our response to the collections of sensory simulations in the world. Sound qualities, or the consciousness of a state is inserted into a certain human behaviour.

This thesis aims to examine the relations between physical form and sound, and the effects of human behavioural in movement patterns in auditory experience. It also intends to explore the design potential of acoustic environment. Auditory and visual sensation generate the indefinite, overlapping and contradictory boundary. The integration of mental and physical senses strengthened the cohesion and importance of our existential experience. The new type of architecture would be acting as experiential installation and focus on the connection of architecture and self.

Keywords Sound Architecture, Perception of Space, Immersive Experience, Spatial Awareness, Acoustic environment, Psycho-acoustic

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01 INTRODUCTION

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01 / 1

Phenomenology and Sound Architecture

According to Merleau-Ponty, phenomenology is the study of essence, including the essence of perception and consciousness. The studies in phenomenology architecture had a significant impact with the relations between spatial perception and human behaviour. A phenomenology architecture aims to interpret human experience and its meaning in this world through establishing the interpretation in actual experience.

Writer such as Juhani Pallasmaa had tried to emphasis the potentially liberating power of a return to the underlying principles of form, space and materiality.

One of the main topics of phenomenology investigation in architecture is immersion. It states that human experience, awareness and actions are always intentional. Senses, including hearing, are the means that humans gain access to perceive space, time and the world as the body ‘live’ them. The world and self inform and redefine each other constantly, hence generate experience.

Sound architecture includes the investigations of sound and listening, sound space, the spatial experience of the built environment and the approach to read sounds. It could also be about the simulation of acoustic space, not in the digital computational way, but rather through the development of an informed and constructive auditory imagination. All of the above indicates that the study of phenomenology sound architecture is to read the relationship between architectural environments and the ways in which they organise and establish particular acoustic signatures.

It suggests that each architecture/space has its unique environmental sound which holds its individual signature.

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01 / 2

Spatial Experience and Sound Architecture

There are various disciplines explores the possibilities between sound and spatial experience. It ranges from anthropology, physics, art history, psychology, media studies and music theory. In this thesis, it mainly focuses on the physics and psychology.

Perception means perceiving something in its context, in its relationship to the surroundings, and it exists in the world in its way. Every perception occurs under different social and spatial situations indicates various meanings, feelings, emotions, and thoughts. Thus, an artwork or an architecture is not a single thing, but fluidity of a work process fulfilled cognitively, corporeally and socially, and is defined spatially and temporarily (FĂźhr 1998: 67). Architectural experience is not simply embedded in visual images, but in confrontations and collaborations.

It consists of action and movement. This possibility of action separate architecture from artworks.

The experience of architecture is multisensory as in vision, hearing, touch, smell and taste. Pallasmaa criticise that the western culture had been dominated by a vision-centred interpretation of knowledge, truth and reality, and at the same time repressed other sense such as hearing.

Yet hearing is necessary to architectural experience, even though it often being neglected in architecture. He writes: “Sight isolates, whereas sound in corporates; vision is directional, sound is omni-directional. The sense of sight implies exteriority, whereas sound creates an experience of interiority. I regard an object, but sound approaches me; the eye reaches, but the ear receives. Buildings do not react to our gaze, but they do return our sound back to our ears.� (Pallasmaa, 2005)

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The importance of sound perception: Imagine watching horror movie without sound effects. Suddenly the movie would be much less scary than it was.

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Pallasmaa points out the existential significance and differences between vision and hearing. He explains that to spatial experience in an architecture is not only to perceive its visual characteristics, but also its acoustic characteristics. The perception of space with sound is very different from visual, it lies in the mediation between body and movement. In the mid-1950s, Marshall McLuhan and the anthropologist Edmund Carpenter proposed a dualistic concept of “acoustic space” and “visual space” to describe the perceptual structures controlling “the mentality of the pre-literate” and the Western imagination respectively (McLuhan, 1960). It could consider as the immersive phenomenology and anthropology investigation in architecture. Moreover, the interiority and the characteristics of reflection are the fundamental properties of designing acoustics space.

Every architecture and space have its unique configuration, hence its one-and-only environmental sound. It could further explain with a silent piece of John Cage, 4’33”. It might be his most polarizing and infamous work, and also radical and philosophical. Before John Cage compose this piece, he visited the anechoic chamber by coincidence. Although he expected to hear nothing, he could listen to his nervous system and blood circulation in operation. Then pianist David Tudor sat in silent and finish that piece that Cage wrote. This piece is the recording of the spatial experience of that particular time and acoustic environment. Thus, the design of sound architecture should focus on the acoustics space which configuring the form and spatial experience. The acoustics characteristic in a space for particular program such as music theatre and lecture hall are not the main discussion of this thesis.

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The first page of John Cage’s 4’33” Sonata, 1952: Acoustics characteristic in a space shows in this piece.

Photo Credit: https://bit. ly/2vRS5ez

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01 / 3

Sound and Human Behaviour

‘Psycho-acoustics’ is a branch of psychology that concerns the psychological effect of sound to human behaviour. The spreading of sound is a matter of physics, and the rules and measurements are well defined and predictable. Physics of sound could be simply be describe in a function of frequency, amplitude and phase. On the other hand, psychology of sound has its own distinct elements of pitch, intensity and timbre. It is based on the perception of its characteristics. In many psychoacoustics experiments, there are some aspect of particular perceptual dimension that are commonly examined, including pitch, loudness, perceived spatial location, timing, tempo, rhythmic structure and timbre. There is an interconnection between physics and psychology of hearing. Sound that is meaningful, by definition, have the ability to produce emotional or affective response in listeners. Emotions is an intangible concept that gives meaning and texture to our perceptual experiences. Consequently, it is inevitable to examine the affective attributes of acoustic space in order to understand how sound architecture produces spatial experience that are influential and significance. Further discussion of psychoacoustics and soundscape relationship will be addressed in chapter 2.

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Interior of St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City: The acoustic experience reinforced and enriched visual perception, which deeply affected the design of architectural space perception throughout history.

Photo Credit: Author

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01 / 4

Aims and Objectives

A

Studies and exploration of spatial influence in sound architecture

A1 - Case Studies of key projects in art and architecture that emphasised acoustics

A2 - Analysis of the acoustic properties from case studies

B

Design potential of soundscape design

B1 - Explore design potential of soundscape design in surface

B2 - Analysis of the soundscape design in architectural elements

C

Develop soundscape design in sound architecture

D

Report of the findings

Throughout this study, the results will identify the design criteria and synthesise a formula of sound space in challenging the interpretation of architecture experience in visual.

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Experience

acoustic signature give me aning & texture

action

emotional response

movement

form

Time

Body

acoustic space

Space

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stig

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Phenomenology

gf

Hearing

in

Perception

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me

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phychology

Senses

Immersion

Consciousness

Architecture

Sound

Conceptual framework.

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02 LITERATURE REVIEW

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02 / 1

The Past and Present of Sound Architecture

This chapter is mainly focus on the historical cultures of sound relates to architecture. The following graph is a timeline represents selected significant sound spaces in the history.

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Lascaux Cave Archaeologists and anthropologists believe that back in the prehistorical period, there are sacred caves where ancient rituals were conducted.

Steven J. Waller (1993), an acoustic archaeology, indicated that the cave wall paintings found in The Cave of Lascaux was located at the acoustic “hot spots”. Acoustic “hot spots” means the space or acoustic chamber that holds the acoustic character of strong echoes and certain frequencies are amplified. It creates percussive sound that is similar to the hoofbeats of a stampeding herd. It heightens the dramatic effect with the paintings as part of the summon rituals. Archaeologist believed that early humans already discovered the unfamiliar acoustic characteristics of those spaces.

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Greek amphitheatre The Greek amphitheatre has a classic semi-circular shape with 34 rows of stone seats, and the Romans added 21 more. The acoustics of this theatre works surprisingly well. When a speaker standing at the surrounding wall’s focal point, all the audience would hear distinctly in the back rows of almost 60 metres away. Mechanical Engineer, Nico Declercq and Cindy Dekeyser, investigated the relationship between the stone benches and filter certain sound waves to emphasize the human voice frequencies. They calculated the frequencies of sound bouncing off the rows of stone benches and discovered the frequencies lower than 500 hertz are more restrained (the volume of sound reduced) than higher ones. By filtering out the low frequencies sound like the rustling trees and murmur of the audience, there will be less audible background noise in the human voice. It shows significant impact to the study of acoustics form in architecture.

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Beauvais Cathedral One of the most common program of sound architecture is church. Music and space have been interconnected since the architecture of Gothic cathedrals in 1130s, because architecture space was considered as part of the music. There were several periods of church design which was closely related to the music development. It is not a discussion whether music or architecture was the main driven, it is simply a historical fact.

The period that Le Thoronet Cathedral (1157) was built, it was under the influence of re-appearance of literacy from dormancy. It holds strong aural sensitivity even when a pin was dropped at the end of the nave at 40 metres away, it still causes a full range of harmonic overtones (Lawlor, 1978). Gregorian chant is simpler and acting as vocal predecessors compare to baroque music is far more complex with harmony based, ensemble plying using woodwind, string, percussive, and early brass instruments. The Cathedral of Saint Peter of Beauvais with high ceilings (34 metres) and stone surfaces aims to have long reverberation time for Gregorian chant. However this kind of acoustic space is not suitable for complex baroque music with too much reverberation, architecture evolved along with the music development.

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Teatro Olimpico Another program that is fundamentally related to sound architecture is performance space. Teatro Olimpico is a theatre that Scamozzi designed a forced perspective onstage scenery to give the appearance of long streets fading to a distant horizon. It applies the forced perspective skills which shows in the section. This is a project of vision illusion, and a possibility for discussion the disconnecting visual and aural sense.

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Amplification System by Athanasius Kitcher Athanasius Kitcher’s Illustration of Amplification System is one of his novel inventions and fantastical proposals. It describes an amplifier device integrated and embedded into architecture. It connected outdoor and indoor spaces as an eavesdropping device to capture the murmur from the workers in courtyard and transmit to the living room. It is also a physical barrier or architecture setting that cut off visual connections but remain hearing. It is one of the main ideas that inspire the exploration of my proposal.

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Whispering Wall of Grand Central Terminal Inside one of the busiest stations in the world, the Grand Central Terminal in New York have a corner-to-corner whispering wall. When one talk softly to the wall of one corner, the sound will follow the curve of the ceiling to the domed and back down at the other side, and another standing at the diagonally position would hear clearly as if whisper at his/her side.

Similar design appeared at the St. Paul’s Cathedral in London as circular canopy under the dome roof.

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Acoustics Defence Project in Britain During World War I to the years to World War II, Britain was involved in a large-scale project by using acoustic as defence system. The study of this project aims to locate incoming gunfire and aircraft movements by various listening devices. They had conducted a series of experiments and two types of listening dishes, one is deeper with parabolic properties and the other one is shallow with spherical curvature. In order to function properly, the angles are critical to the direction of incoming signals. In one of the installation/experiments that has been conducted for this thesis also took references from this project, it will have further discussion in chapter 3.

Drawing based on a photograph from 1928 of the 20-ft. sound mirror at Abbots Cliff, Kent coast.

The mirror was designed to be operated by a single listener. Consulted document: The National Archive, ref. AVIA 7 / 2765.

Strip mirrors 1926-1940.

Abandoned proposal for a national acoustic defence system designating a “listening wall� of coordinated 30ft. and 200-ft. sound mirrors along the eastern coastline of Britain.

The National Archive, ref.

AIR 16/317, Sound discs and mirrors development 1934 Feb.-1935 Nov

Concave surface.

Paraboloid surface.

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02 / 2

Sound Art

There is various sound art project had been studied, includes SoundSpace project by Bernhard Leitner and Snake sculpture by Richard Serra.

Although both projects are mainly exploring the phenomenology of sound and space, it is valuable for further development in this thesis.

Bernhard Leitner concerns about the relationship between sound, space, and body. Leitner has been working in the area between architecture, sculpture and music. In this project, he considers sounds as architectural elements which allow a space to emerge not by its physical form but psychologically. His Sound-Space project is using moving sounds to create a sense of acoustic boundary. He builds up series of structures with speakers, and sound travels through a designated sequence and created an “spatial model in an invisible geometry� as Leitner describes.

The moment when the subject no longer distracted by visual stimulations, acoustic spatial awareness will increase consequentially.

Diagram of sound installation experiments

by Bernhard Leitner

Sound Tube by Bernhard Leitner, 1972 Experiments of using moving sound to create acoustic boundary.

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Richard Serra is a sculptor who explore the possibilities between movement of body, materiality and space. Snake (1994-97) is an articulation of negative space. Although the work’s is firmly grounding, the tilted walls suggested a heightened perception of human defencelessness or physical instability which affects one’s emotions thus actions. Even though Serra have no intention to emphasis the acoustic effect of the sculpture, but the main idea is the spatial awareness affected the movement of the body. It is not only the effect of visual but also the acoustic.

Inside Serra’s Sculpture: Narrow pathway and high walls cutting off the visual connections of outside; sounds of human flow resonant.

02 / 3

Sound Architecture

Son-O-House is a pavilion examine between sound as program and architecture as an environmental expression. The structure of the pavilion is derived from a series of choreographed movements of bodies, limbs and hands as in three scales. The form was further modified and elaborate from a paper model with various cuts of strips. The pavilion is described as a house where sounds live, and its connection to the analogy paper model infuses the conceptualization of the house, concerning to the movement of both bodies and sounds. The structure not only took the body as reference, but also the nature of movements that go together with human habitation. It contains twenty speakers and twenty-three sensors, all positioned at strategic spots. It has a sound

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generation system which is continuously analysing based on spatial interferences and dynamic standing wave patterns. The combination of sounds would show from the series of speakers. It is a memory-scape that develops with the traced behaviour of the actual bodies in the space (van der Heide, 2016). Thus, visitors would be one of the influences and presence who directly contributes to a constantly evolving taxonomy of sounds that constitute its acoustic signature. The acoustic environment changes with the visitor interruptions. The ways in which the sensors attempt to influence behaviours actually challenging the interpretation of the environment. When one location has more activity, the sounds transform in that region would be faster. It is resulted of the system trying to attract the visitors to the opposite locations or ‘push them away from the current location (van der Heide, 2016). Either way, it exploits the acoustic properties to affect human activities.

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Another case is an unbuilt project Passages by sonologist and architect, Raviv Ganchrow. It is a pedestrian underpass in a busy urban intersection.

The tectonic form anticipates interaction measured in terms of directions and durations. There are no defined paths through the space. Different areas inserted with various acoustic properties, it shows as follow: 1. Some areas are adjusted to vocal frequencies, it would increase the awareness of ‘self-presence’, while others filter traffic noise.

2. A sound mirror embedded in a threshold and transfers sound to another precise location.

3. A silence zone constructed of sound-damping (high sound absorption rate) materials.

4. A high reverberant drum space with metallic walkway above it.

5. There are Helmholtz resonators of different scales that connect to the traffic movement upstairs, so it will generate a sequence of hissing sound.

It provides lots of acoustic properties that could embed into architectural setting, and also offer diverse acoustic experience in different area.

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Cromatico is an architectural installation project built by sound artist Lukas KĂźhne. It focuses on the study between space reverberation, frequency and wavelength. This project is based on an acoustic effect called room mode. It states that a room size is correspond to a wavelength and a particular tone. Certain frequencies could exaggerate and compressed by the manipulation of the room dimension. Cromatico contain 12 rooms, each room resoanance different tone.

Tone Frequency Wavelength

F 88 3951mm G 98 3520mm A 110 3136mm B 123 2794mm

D 147 2350mm

C 131 2637mm F# 93 3730mm

E 164 2093mm

G# 104 3323mm A# 117 2960mm

D# 156 2218mm

C# 139 2490mm

Photo KĂźhne.

credits:

Lukas

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TVÍSÖNGUR is another architectural installation project built by Lukas Kühne. The five dome design are based on the five tone harmony tradition of Iceland. Based on the acoustic properties, as well as its visualisation in the landscape, the round shaped pavilion was designed. It then become a unique experience of the visual and the auditory senses. It is also known as the sculpture of “singing concrete”. The heights of the domes are between 2 and 4 meters. The area covered is about 30 sqm. The sites’ solitude and tranquillity offers a perfect environment for acoustic experience by singing or playing music under the harmony of nature, by either alone or perform for audiences.

TVÍSÖNGUR in east Iceland.

Photo credits: Lukas Kühne.

Women singing inside the sculpture, capturing from video clip.

Credits: https://youtu.be/ Nb353uhnmy0Kühne.

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Thermal Vals by Peter Zumthor is a study of the relationship of phenomenology atmosphere and sound in architecture. One of the room, sound bath, was not designed with sound reverberation effect.

It is a coincidence that the chamber size, wall stone, and water sound combines, generate an unique experience. The entrance to the sound bath intentionally cutting off the visual connections. With the shifting levels and the water, it created a journey to unfold layers of space to the inner-most space as the sound bath.

1: Entrance to the sound bath.

2: A man bathing inside sound bath Credits: Atmosphere.

Peter Zumthor.

The plan and sections of Thermal Vals Credits: Atmosphere.

Peter Zumthor.

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Acoustic properties, psycho-acoustic and physio-acoustic

As mentioned in chapter 1, psycho-acoustics is a branch of psychology that concerns the psychological effect of sound to human behaviour.

For sound architecture to be meaningful, it should be able to affect the listeners to produce an emotional response to space. However, it is an elusive topic that have to examine through the affective attributes of acoustic spaces. The external stimulus connects to the emotions, and it is expressed in a body language and relate to physiological changes. It is the metaphor for the acoustic environment response which could be perceived.

When animals react to danger, the auditory thalamus feeds in both the amygdala (automatic feelings) and the neocortex (conscious thought) to give each system an opportunity to evaluate sound on its own terms.

In the simplifier model of fear, the awareness of sound is resulting from various inputs: from the amygdala (extracts the emotional affect of the stimulus), the hippocampus (memories of the associate experience) and the auditory cortex (processes features of the signal). Therefore, the spatial awareness is a composition of emotions, experiences and perceptions. It is also easier to comprehend of why musical and religious spaces are the most prominent spaces in sound architecture. Because these spaces highlight the affective experience, and visitors may consider that the space contains personal significance or experience.

There are various types of studies in psycho-acoustics. There are some negative emotions as in annoyance and stress that associate with certain acoustic properties. Transportation noise, especially aircraft and highway vehicles, are consider as the most annoyance source of sounds. On the contrary, some positive effects are associated with sound as in music

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psychology, sound therapy and natural sources. Studies show music could relived stress, and natural sources is depending on the experience than the actual sound pressure level exposures (Cowen, 2016). Also, increased harmony between the individual and the environment would be resulting positive emotions.

Furthermore, there are some psychological phenomena that relates to curtain acoustic properties. Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) is a brain reaction to certain auditory stimulant and produced artificial intimacy. Only some people would feel warm and fuzzy or even sexually aroused when they hear some soft voices, certain soothing sounds such as scratching and tapping, whispering and brushing. Some scientist speculates that ASMR brain are more open to experience and neurotic. Another phenomenon that already infiltrate in our everyday life is Musak sound. Musak is a company that introduce electronic mood music in the 1930s. Musak was researching the effects of sound on people in regard to mood. It went very well, and the production of mood music was expanded into every aspect of commercial life. Musak mood music has another name called elevator music, because elevator was new technology and the music could ease the stress. In addition, the music could relieve the silence, since it evokes emotions of intrigue, curiosity, contemplativeness. The influence of sound is not limited to the acoustic properties, but also the impact of the lack of it. The general musical characteristics of mode, tempo, pitch, rhythm, harmony and volume can be diverse to produce specific emotional responses.

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Visual and aural differences in spatial awareness

Sound space is not always immediately restricted by the architectonic.

The fundamental difference between light and sound is that light could easily perceived and sync with the visual horizon, but sound is imperceptible and has no clear boarder. Time is essential to sound, but mostly irrelevant for visual. The below diagram illustrates the difference of visual and acoustic horizons. At T0, both the visual and the acoustic horizon are equally defined as plane ACBD. At intervals T1 and T2, the acoustic horizon transforms the shared mesh and the plane deformed and contrast.

On the other hand, hearing is not just about accompanying the visual, but establishing alterations perceptions of the spatial dimension. It is regarding to get into a virtual sound architecture, an imaginative conception of space (as in acoustic horizons) that is not just physical in terms of the context but perceptual. It aims to be open to different notions of the acoustics space and create a space between both notions in order to develop a positive emotional space, or even a folly space that between fidelity towards the visual, causal or narrative.

The difference of acoustic boundary and physical boundary Credits: Fowler, M. (2017).

Architectures of sound : Acoustic concepts and parameters for architectural design.

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Mechanism of Sound

Sound is created when a vibrating object causes changes in the pressure of a surrounding medium (Harris 1979: 2.1). When the object vibrates, it first compresses the surrounding particles and leads to an increase in pressure. If it causes a reduction in pressure, it is called as rarefaction.

The cycle of compression and rarefaction produced a wave of alternating high and low pressure that radiates away from the vibrating object. The rate of these oscillations is frequency and is measured in hertz (Hz).

Audible sound is the result of these changes in the pressure of a wave of energy travelling through a medium. For most purposes, audible sound detectable by the human ear is understood as changes in air pressure (air as surrounding medium) above and below atmospheric pressure. The medium could also be liquids and solids. The speed of sound in air is approximately 344 meter per second at 20 degree Celsius (Harris 1979: 2.2).

The physical properties of sounds have three fundamental mechanism including reflection, diffusion and absorption. There are a series of

Rotunda effect in different space and surface setup.

studies in the definition and diagrams in the mechanism of sounds at the appendix. Below is an example of the form of whispering gallery evolve into different form but remaining the same acoustic properties.

In addition to the physics of sound, which relates to the acoustics space formation, that acoustics usually relates to transformation in reverberation, diffusion, diffraction. However, the resulting sound formations depend on what happens in the environment at any given moment. It is not linear but fluidity. It is a continuously unfinished form, a form that is continually being finished by events that are occurring beyond the control of the architect. It could control the basis of interactions, but the form will never complete and is based on a continual renewal, which also open many possibilities for the design of space.

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02 / 6

Types of Sound

When designing a public space, it is recommended that natural sounds and sounds from human voices should be the most dominant sounds (Davies et al. 2012). The natural sounds create feelings of relaxation and the human voices add vibrancy to a space. Some sources such as transportation, industries and mechanical machinery have negative effect to psychology. On the other hand, the human voice rarely extends above 6000 Hz, and an undamaged ear can hear frequencies above even 20,000 Hz. There is the extra bandwidth to hearing that could use as detection, recognition and localisation of other types of sound, and is something beyond communications.

The audiogram below shows the types of sound in frequency (Hz) and intensity (dB). Sounds represented as follows: rustling leaves, birdsong, crying, vacuum cleaner, dog barking, piano, lawn mower, truck airplane at altitude, motorcycle. The natural sounds are often in the range of higher pitched and lower frequencies, and the mechanical sounds falls in the diagonal side of the diagram.

The difference of acoustic boundary and physical boundary Credits: Fowler, M. (2017).

Architectures of sound : Acoustic concepts and parameters for architectural design.

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02 / 7

Theoretical Framework and Research Question

Through the understanding of the relationship of sound mechanism, spatial perception and psychoacoustic, the diagram below indicated the theoretical framework of this thesis. The main research question of this thesis is: how the design of acoustic environment changes the auditory experience of spaces, and possibly influence the behaviour?

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03 METHODOLOGY

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03 / 1

Adaptation of Literature and Theoretical Framework

Through the understanding of the relationship of sound mechanism, spatial perception and psychoacoustic, the research methodology is mainly conducted in three parts. First two parts studies of form and acoustics properties investigated by using computation analysis and physical installation analysis. The third part of movement pattern studies would be based on the analysis from case studies and literature as specific forces of the design.

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03 / 2

Tools for Analysis

The tool that used for the form analysis are Rhino and Grasshopper. Rhino is working as the 3d modelling software while Grasshopper working as plug in. The script for grasshopper was named as “Esquis’Sons” that obtain from internet. It has ray tracing and simulation function, which could generate ray tracing diagram in steps and simulate as listener position. It has some limitations including: 1. Sources direction cannot be controlled by the tool, the direction changes depends on the listener location.

2. The intensity of sources cannot be controlled by the tool, the number of rays is not related to the intensity of sound.

3. The tool cannot simulate the sound degrading with distance.

4. The material absorption coefficient cannot be controlled by the tool.

Simulation

Source Sound Input

Grasshopper screenshot of the script that generates ray diagram with 3d models.

Variables (1) Listener Location, (2) Listener Height, (3) Receive Direction

(4) Source Location

(5) Geometry

(6) Reverberation

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03 / 3

Form Analysis - First Stage

There are four rounds of tests as Experiment 1 had been conducted for different geometry and dimension. The objectives of the tests are to explore the mechanism of sound in basic geometry. Also, to investigate the limitation in distance between surfaces, speaker and listener in order to establish an optimised setting in proper scale for further experiment.

Figure 21 shows the combinations of the test using three simplest geometry. It used flat, concave and convex surface and produce six sets of tests. There are eight variables that shows below:

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(1) x = Distance between two Surfaces (2) x1 = Distance between Listener & Surface 1 (3) x2 = Distance between Listener & Speaker (4) X3 = Distance between Speaker & Surface 2 (5) y1 = Height of Surface 1 (6) y2 = Height of Surface 2 (7) z1 = Width of Surface 1 (8) z2 = Width of Surface 2

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First round of the test use flat surface mainly with variations of height and width of surface in regard to identify some acoustic properties in ray diagram. The result of first test shows in figure 23. However, it only able to identify some properties which are mostly ambiguate, including the size and proportion of the wall do not have much effect, the sound is diffused and highly reverberated as the ray tracing process is neglecting the materiality.

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Second round of the test is using concave or convex surface pair up with flat surface. The result of second test shows in figure 24. The size of the surface would greatly affect the reflection performance. Also, the listener location should be adjusted to the range of area that is not at the direct opposite to the speaker. From the observation, there are three models that have various overlapping of the rays, which means the intensity and clearness should be heightened. These three models were selected to the fourth round of test for further form investigation.

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Third round of the test is mixing concave or convex surface as pair. The result of second test shows in figure 25. There are three models that have greater effects were selected for further investigate. Despite the size and proportion of the surface, the properties of the geometry are mainly in regard of the two surface directions always perform better in mirror directions.

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The result of fourth test shows in figure 26. The surface in this round are in two different curvature horizontally and vertically. The test on left side is drawn from third round of the test. Although all the test has multiple overlap of rays and a focusing direction, it has many possibilities in the curvature and scale, hence the result would have significant differentiations that hardly anticipate.

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After Experiment 1, the experiment 2 was conducted with similar objective and tools but start to use basic architectural setting instead of simple geometries. The test results show in figure 27. In addition, a rather complex architectural setting also being tested as the demonstration of working with multi-level architectural settings as figure 28.

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03 / 4

Physical Installation Analysis

In the previous studies, the ray-tracing diagrams cannot represent as the actual acoustics experience since the scale is crucial to acoustic.

Therefore, a physical installation in 1:1 was built as a study to connect the ray-tracing diagram to the actual acoustic acoustics experience. There was two different radius acoustic mirror model produced. However, it requires the design of designated space for audience. Therefore, another study was performed.

In the planning stage, there was a time of using the selected models in experiment 1. However, the parabolic shape of acoustic mirror would have the best performance in the intensity and clearness of sound.

Consequently, a set of three installation was built. There are two acoustic mirror and a reflection board. Both the angles of acoustic mirror are adjustable, and they are also in different radius. It is designed for human seating and standing inside two structure that are attached to the acoustic mirror, which indicate an acoustic and intimate space. There is an acrylic sign indicates the focus point which holds the strongest effect for listener and speaker. A mini Bluetooth speaker was used to even when there is only single audience. The material of reflection board is aluminium since it is a highly sound reflective material.

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Despite it shows the simultaneous to the digital stimulation, the result of this study includes the depth of an operable acoustic mirror, the distance and angles between the two acoustic mirror, and actual acoustic experience gained. The depth of the shallow acoustic mirror seems to be the limitation of this particular model size. Although it worked, but the sound clearness is worse than the first pair of acoustic mirrors with greater depth. As for the distance and angles, it can be adjusted on site.

The actual acoustic experience is almost like a whisper at the side of ear, and also easy to pick up at the trajectory of sound transfer.

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Vocus Point olic

Parab

ce

Surfa

Chamber 1

nd

u so

tr

Parabolic Surface

y

or

ct

e aj

Aluminium Panel

Vocus Point

Chamber 2

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03 / 5

Form Analysis - Second Stage

The second stage would be focus on categorise the test based on 5 factors that constructing an architectural space, including radius, degree, concave/convex, the plane of axis (XY or Z or both plane) and the scale of room. The size of space was determine by the approximate size of the future design. Therefore, the size of space categorise into 3 scales.

S, M and L, which are correspond to 25sqm, 50sqm and 100sqm area of room. All the radius in the following diagrams are indicated in meter unit.

The result are further used as part of the design in order to determine the propagation pattern of acoustic in certain setup.

Radius

Radius

Degree

Degree

Zplane Concave

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Zplane Convex

XYplane Concave

e

Degree

lan p Z

XY plane

Radius

Scale of room (Area) XYplane Convex

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Concave - XY Plane - Scale S

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Radius 6.7

Degree 45

Radius 3.5

Degree 90

Radius 2.8

Degree 125

Radius 2.6

Degree 160

Radius 2.5

Degree 175

Convex - XY Plane - Scale S

Radius 6.7

Degree 45

Radius 3.5

Degree 90

Radius 2.8

Degree 145

Radius 2.6

Degree 150

Radius 2.5

Degree 175

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Concave - Z Plane - Scale S

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Radius 20.4

Degree 20

Radius 12.6

Degree 35

Radius 8.9

Degree 55

Radius 5.7

Degree 90

Radius 4.5

Degree 130

Convex - Z Plane - Scale S

Radius 20.4

Degree 20

Radius 12.6

Degree 35

Radius 8.9

Degree 55

Radius 5.7

Degree 90

Radius 4.5

Degree 130

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Concave - XY Plane - Scale M

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Radius 25

Degree 25

Radius 14

Degree 45

Radius 8

Degree 75

Radius 6

Degree 110

Radius 5

Degree 145

Convex - XY Plane - Scale M

Radius 25

Degree 25

Radius 14

Degree 45

Radius 8

Degree 75

Radius 6

Degree 110

Radius 5

Degree 145

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Concave - Z Plane - Scale M

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Radius 20

Degree 20

Radius 13

Degree 35

Radius 9

Degree 55

Radius 6

Degree 90

Radius 5

Degree 130

Convex - Z Plane - Scale M

Radius 20

Degree 20

Radius 13

Degree 35

Radius 9

Degree 55

Radius 6

Degree 90

Radius 5

Degree 130

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Concave - XY Plane - Scale L

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Radius 34

Degree 45

Radius 24

Degree 60

Radius 20

Degree 75

Radius 18

Degree 115

Radius 13

Degree 125

Convex - XY Plane - Scale L

Radius 34

Degree 45

Radius 24

Degree 60

Radius 20

Degree 75

Radius 18

Degree 90

Radius 13

Degree 145

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Concave - Z Plane - Scale L

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Radius 4

Degree 180

Radius 5

Degree 90

Radius 6

Degree 55

Radius 20

Degree 20

Radius 9

Degree 15

Convex - Z Plane - Scale L

Radius 4

Degree 180

Radius 5

Degree 130

Radius 6

Degree 90

Radius 20

Degree 20

Radius 9

Degree 55

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04 EXPERIMENT & IMAGINATION

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Volumetric geometry exploration

From the study of physical installation, there are number of design potential was generated by using its three surfaces to create a continuous space. This is not a final design trial, it is only an exploration of possibilities of acoustic space formation. There are few forces that drives the design, including: (1) The visual connection of the space should be severed with physical barrier.

(2) The aural connection of the space should stay.

(3) There are individual room for each element/surface, which makes it three rooms.

The surfaces are embedded into the architectural elements. There are four spaces including negative space. Except the speaker and listener, people can also eavesdropping at the trajectory of sound transfer. The program could be a children playground with kids playing hide and seek, or a church and that three surfaces acting as confession box. It was mentioned in chapter 2 that religious space is suitable for sound architecture because of the personal sentimental connections. Since the visual connection is severed. The speaker and listener are basically anonymous if they never run into each other after they talked. It will add another layer of design in forced circulation, and also given the sound of this project a meaning.

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A set of sound mirror embedded into the surfaces. It is the intention to hide the surfaces with the building walls. The experience include the moment of surprise, when accidentally heard someone’s murmur on the trajectory.

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One continuous form of space separated into four rooms.

Each room have individual entrance. And the visual connection between rooms are blocked.

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Maybe a park?

About exploration, hide and seek, play and fun.

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Maybe a church?

About redemption, confession, clarity, enlightenment

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In order to define the acoustic horizon, dimension of auditory space, the acoustic arena by specific forces, it should establish some architectural aspects such as from, materiality, texture, program and structure that could directly understood in terms of architectonic, of the box and of sensation.

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05 SITE SELECTION

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The site location was under mainly influence by several conditions. The site is a underground space, which connects Central MTR concourse to the Connaught Road Central pedestrian tunnel, it cuts off the interference from the environment. Yet, Central district provides huge human flow in order to have sustainable source of sounds as walk and talk sounds.

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06 DESIGN PROCESS

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Diffuser / Material Studies

Freedom of speech / Conceptual Drawings

Difference between visual and aural / Diagram

Program for meditation centre / Diagrams

Preliminary design of the final

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07 FINAL DESIGN

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07 / 1

Design Intention

Cutting off visual connection to the Cutting off visual connection the sound source, enhancing the sound experience in space sound to source, enhancing the sound

experience in space.

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Create unexpected conditions for

Possible commuication under unexpected conditions possible communication, the element of surprise embedded to the experience.

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Separate chambers and connect with tunnels; avoid interference from the environment

Separate chambers and connect with tunnels; avoid interference from the environment.

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Plan / 1:1000 87

UG1 / 1:400

UG2 / 1:400

Sectional Diagram / 1:1000

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Sectional Diagram / 1:300

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Sound Mirror Chamber Location: UG1 Scale: S This chamber is designed based on the physical installlation, and modified it to the cross level setting. The chamber can only access from underground level 1. The visual connection are cutting off at some area. The shaded area indicate an invisible boundary of space which increase the sense of privacy. The sound source of this chamber is mainly coming from human voice.

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Tonality Resonance Chamber Location: UG2 Scale: M This chamber is designed based on the room mode effect, which each room with different room size and height could resonance specific tone. There are 3 rooms inside this chamber. It represents tone E, C and F respectively, which are also harmonic tone. The architectural space are acting as an instrument. The sound source would be human voice or people playing instrument.

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Water Chamber Location: UG1 Scale: L with lower floor height Water chamber contains two rooms (open and close), both area are separated by a wall with a slit of opening on the ground. The water acting as both sound source and sound reflector. The floor with coating could reflect the shadow of water and the sound of water splashing are flowing into the close room. The close room visitor have much more space to the open room as for the imagination without visual connections.

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In Between Sound Chamber Location: UG2 Scale: L with higher floor height The chamber have invisible boundary separated the space into 3 parts. The ray diagram shows the sound project from the ground floor are reflected to the lower part of the chamber. However, the other part of the chamber underground would not be able to hear that. Instead, the rest of the room are using sound absorption panel on walls. Therefore when visitors moving between 2 spaces (which actually is one), the effect of with or without sound create the moment of phenomenology experience.

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APPENDIX

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Glossary Reflection The return of light, heat, sound, or energy from a surface.

Diffusion The process of spreading into a surrounding substance; Diffusion is also the way sound spreads when it is reflected from a rough surface or passed through a translucent substance.

Absorption The process by which a substance or object takes in a liquid, gas, waves, or chemical and makes it a part of itself.

Refraction The fact of sound being caused to change direction or to separate when it travels through water, glass, etc.

Diffraction (A pattern caused by) A change in the direction of sound waves.

Interference Interference between two waves happens when they have the same frequency and produce a force that is either stronger or weaker than one wave alone.

Amplification The process of increasing the volume of sound Acoustic glare The reflection of sound waves from flat or smooth surfaces, making them sound harsh or strident.

Acoustic Shadow An area through which sound waves fail to propagate, due to topographical obstructions or disruption of the waves via phenomena such as wind currents, buildings, or sound barriers.

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Reverberation A persistence of sound after the sound is produced.

Sound Something that you can hear or that can be heard.

Aural The sense of hearing.

Acoustics The properties or qualities of a room or building that determine how sound is transmitted in it.

Aural Isolation = Schizophrenic hearing A phenomenon refers to the loss relationship between visual-architecture and sources of sound.

Auditory Experience a combination of hearing, visual stimuli, experience and psychology Paraboloid A paraboloid is a quadric surface that has (exactly) one axis of symmetry and no centre of symmetry.

Noise Irregular fluctuations that accompany a transmitted electrical signal but are not part of it and tend to obscure it.

Soundscape The component of the acoustic environment that can be perceived by humans.

Sound absorption coefficient The amount of light absorbed per thickness of material

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