Question
Asked 11 May 2014

How can the sound planning of a city affect its urban planning?

We should pay attention to mobility, environment and usage of land.

Most recent answer

Aggeliki Tsiapa
University of Thessaly
I strongly support Ibrahim's opinion. So, I have already suggested an urban planning design in a public area, based, simultaneously, both on hiding unpleasant sounds and on creating urban places with nice natural sounds. Going even further, I dared to suggest a way in creating interactive places of sound by the pedestrians.

Popular answers (1)

Evert Ph.J. De Ruiter
Delft University of Technology
Brasilia, Iordi, might be inspired by Le Corbusier: a complex of free standing highrise buildings. My thesis "The great canyon" chooses the opposite: the use of contiguous buildings along main roads, protecting the hinterland from traffic noise. The "canyon buildings" can be dwellings, fully adapted to the noise load on the canyon facade.
A combination of these canyons yields "acoustical polders", quiet areas in the city.
3 Recommendations

All Answers (8)

Evert Ph.J. De Ruiter
Delft University of Technology
You might find some ideas in my thesis, available on Research Gate, Aggeliki.
1 Recommendation
Iordi Alexander Requena Lara
Universidad La Salle
Urban acoustics are a major theme when designing new, comfortable and sustainable cities.
When planning your acoustics, based on distances, types of traffic, industries and everything that will make noise, you have to consider where people live, study, work and where they go to drink coffee.
A good urban acoustics plan can make people life more comfortable, and at the same time, healtier. There are lots of degenerative illness produced by high diary sound pressure exposure. Mainly, that illness appear when living next to a big-transited street or freeway or living near to industrial places.
Architecture is too a must-have to be acoustical planned, because buildings reflect sound and most of it concentrates in major streets, surrounded by high constructions.
One of the best examples of what not to do is in the capital of Brazil, in Brasília. There is a modern city-like administrative region called "Aguas Claras", where lots of tall buildings were built at the same time, with street-oriented steel, glass and concrete facades that reflects all of the sound comming from the street. This causes extreme discomfort in people living there and lots of sleeping problems. Yes, sleeping problems, because when a truck passes at 3am you will certainly listen it, and it will make you wake up. As everything, this causes a chain reaction in peoples health and comfort. Living in Aguas Claras is really unpleasant and one of the major factors of that is a really bad or inexistent urban acoustics planning.
1 Recommendation
Jeremi Rychlewski
Poznań University of Technology
It is also one of arguments for hierarchisation of streets.  Streets serving buildings should not be too wide to provide proper urbanistic scale (scale for people), but that requires that traffic on such streets is low and no heavy traffic at night.  In other words, such streets have to be only for local traffic, which means that you need streets for through traffic.  According to Mondermann, a through street should be able to reach within 500-1000 m.
1 Recommendation
Ibrahim Z. Bahreldin
King Abdulaziz University
Urban soundscape is essential element of urban design. It's importance comes from  being able to touch people's souls and hearts, therefore it  goes beyond the limited boundaries of the space design that is based on the visual dimension to creat better users experiences. An interesting Ted talk by Julian treasure called " Do architects Have ears" might be interesting to look at.
Unfortunately , soundscape planning is still new to urban planning and design field. 
3 Recommendations
Evert Ph.J. De Ruiter
Delft University of Technology
Brasilia, Iordi, might be inspired by Le Corbusier: a complex of free standing highrise buildings. My thesis "The great canyon" chooses the opposite: the use of contiguous buildings along main roads, protecting the hinterland from traffic noise. The "canyon buildings" can be dwellings, fully adapted to the noise load on the canyon facade.
A combination of these canyons yields "acoustical polders", quiet areas in the city.
3 Recommendations
Ibrahim Z. Bahreldin
King Abdulaziz University
Very true Evert, but to my understanding , sound planning goes beyond calming or protecting urban dweller from unwanted sound. It strives to add pleasant sounds to the urban space rather than making the space quite. by doing so, mental and physical health can be significantly improved.
3 Recommendations
Evert Ph.J. De Ruiter
Delft University of Technology
I agree, Ibrahim. Adding pleasant or meaningful sounds in the quiet areas (acoustical polders) is part of the soundscape as well. 
2 Recommendations
Aggeliki Tsiapa
University of Thessaly
I strongly support Ibrahim's opinion. So, I have already suggested an urban planning design in a public area, based, simultaneously, both on hiding unpleasant sounds and on creating urban places with nice natural sounds. Going even further, I dared to suggest a way in creating interactive places of sound by the pedestrians.

Similar questions and discussions

Special Issue on "LAND" - Call for Papers "Integrating Spatial Analysis and Regional Science to Guide Urban Planning "
Discussion
1 reply
  • Apostolos LagariasApostolos Lagarias
Dear Colleagues,
The aim of this Special Issue is to explore the latest advances in the fields of spatial analysis and regional science, focused on integrated methodologies, strategies, and frameworks to guide urban planning decisions. To this end, we search for innovative approaches linking the regional to urban planning dimension from a spatial analysis perspective.
This Special Issue will welcome manuscripts that link the following themes:
  • Advanced spatial analysis tools, including spatial optimization, suitability analysis, land use/land cover modeling, and simulation modelling;
  • Innovative geospatial methodologies for the examination of land use conflicts and land degradation due to urbanization;
  • Models and methods evaluating the environmental and climate-related parameters of urban areas to support regional sustainability;
  • Decision support systems and tools for urban areas, handling local to global connections on a regional scale;
  • Exploration of regional science tools and methods for guiding sustainable urban development.
Keywords
  • spatial analysis
  • urban planning
  • regional science
  • spatial optimization
  • land use modelling
  • decision support systems
  • sustainable development
  • policy making
  • environmental management
  • climate change
  • local-global connections
We look forward to receiving your original research articles and reviews.
Dr. Apostolos Lagarias Dr. Poulicos Prastacos Dr. Despina Dimelli Dr. Alexandra Delgado-Jiménez Guest Editors

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