Temporary sound installations can be a low-cost way of dealing with noise pollution in areas of high urban density, McGill University researchers have found.
Dubbed the "new second hand smoke," noise pollution can have consequences ranging from simple annoyance to such serious health problems as hearing loss and high blood pressure and can exacerbate various mental health conditions.
"We believe that temporary sound installations, as a form of low-cost, small-scale, ephemeral interventions, could be added to the tactical urbanism tool kit and lead to the development and improvement of public spaces," said Catherine Guastavino, senior author of the article and a professor in McGill's School of Information Studies.
Working in co-operation with the City of Montreal, the researchers studied how sound installations could be used to enhance citizens' relationships with public spaces amid the noise of the city.
The researchers worked with Audiotopie, a collective of local sound artists who created four sound installations that played at different periods in 2018 and 2019 in a small park in the dense urban neighbourhood of Plateau Mont-Royal.
The installations featured different combinations of sounds, some evoking woodlands and seascapes, others involving human voices and synthesizers. The researchers then surveyed 800 park users.
To hear one of the installations
The results indicate that the experience of park users was enhanced in the presence of all 4 sound installations, which resulted in calmer and more pleasant soundscapes. Respondents also reported a decrease in how loud the other urban sounds felt.
The study revealed that the sound installations had a particularly strong, positive effect when there was construction noise. The team also learned that while sound installations can distract attention from negative sounds, such as traffic and air conditioning, they were also found to distract from positive sounds, such as birds and voices. The team also pointed out that the study was conducted in a well-planned area, with a pre-existing sound environment that was already quite pleasant: it is unlikely that sound installations alone would suffice to tackle all noise problems in more exposed areas.
"We want people to think of sound not just as pollution, but as a resource to enjoy in the city," said Valérian Fraisse, a PhD student at the Schulich School of Music and corresponding author on the study, which was recently published in Landscape and Urban Planning.
The research group is also working on raising awareness of the importance of integrating sound into urban planning, Fraisse said.
Find more information about other Sounds in the City projects in Montreal.
The study: "Shaping city soundscapes: In situ comparison of four sound installations in an urban public space" by V. Fraisse, C. Tarlao and C. Guastavino was published in Landscape and Urban Planning
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2024.105173
The research was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).
