scholarly journals The Living Barrier: Residential architecture acting as a noise barrier near railway corridors

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Jonathan Lim
Keyword(s):  
Psychological Health ◽  
Architectural Design ◽  
Relevant Literature ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Acoustic Environment ◽  
Design Elements ◽  
Residential Architecture ◽  
Health And Wellbeing ◽  
Noise Barrier ◽  
Acoustic Environments

<p>As urban regions increase in population and density, the need for quietness and spaces of relative calm becomes important to inhabitants’ physiological and psychological health and wellbeing. Noises, and the sounds that create them, are treated as a by-product of urban densification and the advancement of technology. This led to uncontrolled and incidental acoustic environments around notable points of urban densification. Each sound adds together in the acoustic environment to create a composition that is labelled collectively as noise. Those in the professions of planning and designing these urban environments have a responsibility to become the composers of the grand aural experience that is the worldly soundscape.  In response to this design problem, this portfolio explored how architecture can be designed to enable this sustainable densification of noisy urban environments. It proposed the incorporation of psychoacoustics and R. Murray Schafer’s soundscape philosophy (and ongoing related research) into acoustic design. By understanding the complex creation of the aural experience, this portfolio investigated whether the key to living healthily and sustainably in an inevitably sound-filled urban environment laid in the design of soundscape as a perceptual construct.  The investigation translated relevant literature into broad explorations of soundscape design elements at a variety of architectural scales. Using soundscape principles in a design process produced a strong architectural proposition that could solve both densification and acoustic problems. This had widespread and profound implications on architectural design practices. The portfolio therefore prompts further explorations into soundscape design for other architectural problems and applications.</p>

scholarly journals The Living Barrier: Residential architecture acting as a noise barrier near railway corridors

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Jonathan Lim
Keyword(s):  
Psychological Health ◽  
Architectural Design ◽  
Relevant Literature ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Acoustic Environment ◽  
Design Elements ◽  
Residential Architecture ◽  
Health And Wellbeing ◽  
Noise Barrier ◽  
Acoustic Environments

<p>As urban regions increase in population and density, the need for quietness and spaces of relative calm becomes important to inhabitants’ physiological and psychological health and wellbeing. Noises, and the sounds that create them, are treated as a by-product of urban densification and the advancement of technology. This led to uncontrolled and incidental acoustic environments around notable points of urban densification. Each sound adds together in the acoustic environment to create a composition that is labelled collectively as noise. Those in the professions of planning and designing these urban environments have a responsibility to become the composers of the grand aural experience that is the worldly soundscape.  In response to this design problem, this portfolio explored how architecture can be designed to enable this sustainable densification of noisy urban environments. It proposed the incorporation of psychoacoustics and R. Murray Schafer’s soundscape philosophy (and ongoing related research) into acoustic design. By understanding the complex creation of the aural experience, this portfolio investigated whether the key to living healthily and sustainably in an inevitably sound-filled urban environment laid in the design of soundscape as a perceptual construct.  The investigation translated relevant literature into broad explorations of soundscape design elements at a variety of architectural scales. Using soundscape principles in a design process produced a strong architectural proposition that could solve both densification and acoustic problems. This had widespread and profound implications on architectural design practices. The portfolio therefore prompts further explorations into soundscape design for other architectural problems and applications.</p>

scholarly journals Revisiting Acoustics Education Using Mobile Devices to Learn Urban Acoustic Environments: Recent Issues on Current Devices and Applications

Urban Science ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimihiro Sakagami ◽  
Fumiaki Satoh ◽  
Akira Omoto
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Devices ◽  
Urban Studies ◽  
Education Program ◽  
Sound Pressure ◽  
Measurement Accuracy ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Model Case ◽  
Acoustic Environment ◽  
Acoustic Environments ◽  
Noise Map

In this paper, we revisit the acoustics education program using mobile devices to better understand urban environments. We begin with a summary of our past projects to demonstrate a model case of the concept. In these projects, the output was mainly supposed to be a noise map with measured sound pressure levels (SPLs) and sound spectra. This methodology can obviously be applied to larger-scale urban studies. Including measured sound spectra can be another advantage. Next, current problems in measurement accuracy due to recent device developments are explained and the required examinations are stated. Finally, the accuracy of the current versions of the applications as well as recently available devices are discussed. The results of this study provide information regarding the measurement accuracy of mobile devices, and some suggestions for their practical use are given, which are also useful for additional studies pertaining to the urban acoustic environment.

scholarly journals Appraisal of Significance of Acoustic Parameters in Contribution to Human Annoyance

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 3787
Author(s):  
Mia Suhanek ◽  
Sanja Grubeša ◽  
Ivan Đurek ◽  
Antonio Petošić
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Significance ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Audio Signals ◽  
Acoustic Parameters ◽  
Chi Square ◽  
Acoustic Environment ◽  
Chi Square Test ◽  
Human Annoyance ◽  
Acoustic Environments ◽  
Amplitude Growth

The goal of this paper was to describe a study which aimed to determine the significance of acoustic parameters in terms of some typical audio signals which occur in common urban environments. The focus when establishing the significance was set on their relevance with respect to the annoyance of the study participants. In order to carry out this experiment, an acoustic environment recording was made in which short distracting signals were inserted into the acoustic environment background sound. The recording obtained in the described way was then reproduced to listeners in laboratory conditions. Furthermore, the experiment was envisaged in a way that the participants had the option to adjust the following acoustic parameters: the amplitude, duration and the amplitude growth rates of the short signals. In order to prove the statistical significance of the obtained results from the experiment and the study premise, the chi-square test was applied. Thus, according to the results of the study, the ranking of the objective acoustic parameters was achieved with respect to the human annoyance i.e., it can be concluded that the most common reason for the human annoyance in different acoustic environments is the sound amplitude, then its duration and finally its amplitude growth rate.

Hearing Aid Amplification Reduces Communication Effort of People With Hearing Impairment and Their Conversation Partners

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 1299-1311 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Beechey ◽  
Jörg M. Buchholz ◽  
Gitte Keidser
Keyword(s):  
Hearing Impairment ◽  
Hearing Aid ◽  
Normal Hearing ◽  
Referential Communication ◽  
Hearing Impaired ◽  
Directional Hearing ◽  
Acoustic Environment ◽  
Communication Task ◽  
Acoustic Environments ◽  
The Impact

Objectives This study investigates the hypothesis that hearing aid amplification reduces effort within conversation for both hearing aid wearers and their communication partners. Levels of effort, in the form of speech production modifications, required to maintain successful spoken communication in a range of acoustic environments are compared to earlier reported results measured in unaided conversation conditions. Design Fifteen young adult normal-hearing participants and 15 older adult hearing-impaired participants were tested in pairs. Each pair consisted of one young normal-hearing participant and one older hearing-impaired participant. Hearing-impaired participants received directional hearing aid amplification, according to their audiogram, via a master hearing aid with gain provided according to the NAL-NL2 fitting formula. Pairs of participants were required to take part in naturalistic conversations through the use of a referential communication task. Each pair took part in five conversations, each of 5-min duration. During each conversation, participants were exposed to one of five different realistic acoustic environments presented through highly open headphones. The ordering of acoustic environments across experimental blocks was pseudorandomized. Resulting recordings of conversational speech were analyzed to determine the magnitude of speech modifications, in terms of vocal level and spectrum, produced by normal-hearing talkers as a function of both acoustic environment and the degree of high-frequency average hearing impairment of their conversation partner. Results The magnitude of spectral modifications of speech produced by normal-hearing talkers during conversations with aided hearing-impaired interlocutors was smaller than the speech modifications observed during conversations between the same pairs of participants in the absence of hearing aid amplification. Conclusions The provision of hearing aid amplification reduces the effort required to maintain communication in adverse conditions. This reduction in effort provides benefit to hearing-impaired individuals and also to the conversation partners of hearing-impaired individuals. By considering the impact of amplification on both sides of dyadic conversations, this approach contributes to an increased understanding of the likely impact of hearing impairment on everyday communication.

scholarly journals Biomimetic Urban and Architectural Design: Illustrating and Leveraging Relationships between Ecosystem Services

Biomimetics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 2
Author(s):  
Maibritt Pedersen Zari
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Urban Design ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Architectural Design ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Published Data ◽  
Ecological Knowledge ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Spatial Design ◽  
Key Barrier

Redesigning and retrofitting cities so they become complex systems that create ecological and cultural–societal health through the provision of ecosystem services is of critical importance. Although a handful of methodologies and frameworks for considering how to design urban environments so that they provide ecosystem services have been proposed, their use is not widespread. A key barrier to their development has been identified as a lack of ecological knowledge about relationships between ecosystem services, which is then translated into the field of spatial design. In response, this paper examines recently published data concerning synergetic and conflicting relationships between ecosystem services from the field of ecology and then synthesises, translates, and illustrates this information for an architectural and urban design context. The intention of the diagrams created in this research is to enable designers and policy makers to make better decisions about how to effectively increase the provision of various ecosystem services in urban areas without causing unanticipated degradation in others. The results indicate that although targets of ecosystem services can be both spatially and metrically quantifiable while working across different scales, their effectiveness can be increased if relationships between them are considered during design phases of project development.

„Socialist postmodernism”: residential architecture in Kyiv Podil district (Ukraine)

BUILDER ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 293 (12) ◽  
pp. 46-51
Author(s):  
Svitlana Linda
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Construction Projects ◽  
Architectural Design ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
Residential Architecture ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The One ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Residential Quarters

Despite the short chronological span of the socialist era architecture heritage, it remains little investigated and underappreciated. Given the political and cultural isolation of the Soviet Union republics and strict architectural design regulations, there was a widespread belief that architects should not use innovative trends. This article exemplifies residential quarters in the historic Podil district, designed and built in the 1970s-1980s in Kyiv. They vividly demonstrate the postmodern ideas embodied in Ukrainian architecture. Methodologically, the article bases on the Ch. Jencks definition of postmodernism and in the comparison of his ideology with the implemented Kyiv project. It states that Kyiv architects proposed not typical Soviet construction projects but international postmodern architectural solutions. It proves that, on the one hand, Ukrainian architects had perfect qualifications to draw construction projects implementing advanced world trends of the time. But on the other hand, it highlights that postmodernism in architecture did not merely confine to Western Europe and the United States but also penetrated the Iron Curtain, exemplifying innovative architectural thinking which ran contrary to the modernist paradigm.

scholarly journals Subjective Experience of Speech Depending on the Acoustic Treatment in an Ordinary Room

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (23) ◽  
pp. 12274
Author(s):  
Emma Arvidsson ◽  
Erling Nilsson ◽  
Delphine Bard-Hagberg ◽  
Ola J. I. Karlsson
Keyword(s):  
Speech Perception ◽  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Sound Quality ◽  
Reverberation Time ◽  
Acoustic Environment ◽  
Acoustic Environments ◽  
The Right ◽  
Acoustic Treatment ◽  
High Degree ◽  
Speech Clarity

In environments such as classrooms and offices, complex tasks are performed. A satisfactory acoustic environment is critical for the performance of such tasks. To ensure a good acoustic environment, the right acoustic treatment must be used. The relation between different room acoustic treatments and how they affect speech perception in these types of rooms is not yet fully understood. In this study, speech perception was evaluated for three different configurations using absorbers and diffusers. Twenty-nine participants reported on their subjective experience of speech in respect of different configurations in different positions in a room. They judged sound quality and attributes related to speech perception. In addition, the jury members ranked the different acoustic environments. The subjective experience was related to the different room acoustic treatments and the room acoustic parameters of speech clarity, reverberation time and sound strength. It was found that people, on average, rated treatments with a high degree of absorption as best. This configuration had the highest speech clarity value and lowest values for reverberation time and sound strength. The perceived sound quality could be correlated to speech clarity, while attributes related to speech perception had the strongest association with reverberation time.

scholarly journals Ethnic Differences in Environmental Restoration: Arab and Jewish Women in Israel

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (23) ◽  
pp. 12628
Author(s):  
Diana Saadi ◽  
Izhak Schnell ◽  
Emanuel Tirosh
Keyword(s):  
Psychological Health ◽  
Central City ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Jewish Women ◽  
Cognitive Response ◽  
Restorative Environments ◽  
National Differences ◽  
Social Discomfort ◽  
Intervening Variables

Throughout the last few decades, plenty of attention has been paid to restorative environments that positively affect human psychological health. These studies show that restorative environments affect human beings emotionally, physiologically, and cognitively. Some studies focus on the cognitive effects of exposure to restorative environments. A widely used index that measures the cognitive response is the Perceived Restoration Potential Scale (PRS). Most studies employing the PRS have examined differences in human cognitive response between types of urban environments mainly urban versus green ones. We use Hartig’s questionnaire to expose differences between types of urban environments and ethnic groups. Variances between Arab and Jewish women were calculated in four environments: home; park; residential and central city environments. The effect of intervening variables such as exposure to thermal, noise, social and CO loads and social discomfort were tested. We find that dissimilar to urban typical built-up environments, green areas are highly restorative. Furthermore, differences in the restorativeness of different urban environments are low though significant. These differences depend on their function, aesthetic qualities, and amount of greenery. Ethno-national differences appear to affect the experience of restoration. While both ethnic related groups experienced a tremendous sense of restoration in parks, Jewish women enjoyed slightly higher levels of restoration mainly at home and in residential environments compared to Arab women who experienced higher sense of restorativness in central city environments. Jewish women experienced higher sense of being away and fascination. From the intervening variables, social discomfort explained 68 percent of the experience of restoration, noise explained 49 percent, thermal load explained 43 percent and ethnicity 14 percent of the variance in PRS.

scholarly journals Assistive Technologies and Environmental Design Concepts for Blended Learning and Teaching for Disabilities within 3D Virtual Worlds and Learning Environments

2012 ◽  
pp. 50-74
Author(s):  
Noha Saleeb ◽  
Georgios A. Dafoulas
Keyword(s):  
Adult Learners ◽  
Blended Learning ◽  
Learning Environments ◽  
Virtual Worlds ◽  
Architectural Design ◽  
Learning Spaces ◽  
Educational Facilities ◽  
Design Elements ◽  
Virtual Spaces ◽  
E Learning

3D Virtual Learning Environments (3D VLEs) are increasingly becoming prominent supporters of blended learning for all kinds of students including adult learners with or without disabilities. Due to the evidenced effect of architectural design of physical learning spaces on students’ learning and current lack of design codes for creating 3D virtual buildings, this case study aims at evaluating the suitability of the architectural design elements of existing educational facilities and learning spaces within 3D VLEs specifically for delivering blended e-learning for adult students with disabilities. This comprises capturing student contentment and satisfaction levels from different design elements of the 3D virtual spaces in an attempt to issue recommendations for the development of 3D educational facilities and hence initiate a framework for architectural design of 3D virtual spaces to augment accessibility, appeal and engagement for enhancing the e-learning experience of under-graduate, post-graduate and independent-study adult learners with disabilities within these virtual worlds.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document