Edda BildInstitute for Work and Health
Edda Bild
Doctor of Philosophy
Creating safe workplaces for newcomers: organizational health & safety in linguistically & culturally diverse workplaces
About
31
Publications
9,447
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388
Citations
Introduction
I am a research associate for the ‘Creating safe workplaces for newcomers’ research project, an IRCC-funded study examining the opportunities and challenges of supporting safe workplaces for newcomers and managing organizational health and safety in linguistically and culturally diverse workplaces. My previous work was on the sensory dimension of urban experiences, with an emphasis on soundscapes and their relationship to public space use.
Additional affiliations
October 2019 - June 2023
Position
- Postdoctoral fellow
Description
- Soundscape researcher & educator on projects related to urban soundscape and urban sonic cohabitation in downtown Montreal (between recreational and residential activities) and in Montreal East (between industrial and economic activities, and residential activities), as part of collaborations with the City of Montreal, various Montreal municipalities, provincial ministries and the Public Health Department.
July 2019 - present
Sounds in the City
Position
- Soundscape researcher
Description
- Soundscape researcher in the Sounds in the City team
June 2014 - November 2019
Position
- PhD Student
Description
- My PhD thesis researched the relationship between the activities that public space users perform in their spaces and the ways in which they interpret and evaluate their auditory environments on site
Publications
Publications (31)
We critically review the literature on the relationship between users of public spaces and their auditory environments, and how this knowledge is integrated in the planning, design, and management of public spaces as well as in technologies for acoustic and spatial data collection, analysis, and communication. To address the gaps identified in the...
We argue for a reconsideration of the role of public sharing of music and technology in urban, public settings, based on the results of research involving an interactive sound system. While current legislation in Quebec prevents the playing of amplified music in public, with the support of a Montreal borough, we developed and installed an open, fre...
Sound, particularly noise and its effects on urban dwellers, has been a main concern for urban public campaigns for centuries worldwide. While policies relating to noise control have origins documented as far back as the 7th century, noise abatement campaigns, with the objective to assess and reduce ”annoying” or dangerous noise, started in the ear...
La inmersión de las personas en reservas silvestres y otras zonas no intervenidas, en las que predomina la percepción de sonidos naturales por sobre el ruido antrópico, puede generar bienestar y efectos restauradores en la salud física y psíquica. Estos beneficios, propios de la experiencia en la naturaleza, bajo ciertas circunstancias pueden ser r...
Sound and noise play a critical role in the experience of urban environments. We review the literature on sound environments in Montreal and their effects on city users, including public sector reports from the City of Montreal and Montreal’s public health agency in addition to academic research, published between 2010 and 2020. 73 studies were ana...
The effect of urban policies on the atmosphere of urban areas is rarely documented. Mobilizing the concept of atmosphere, this article takes a sonic lens to put forward a sensorial understanding of how urban policies shape city users’ sonic experiences and impact the perceived liveliness and attractiveness of public spaces. Reporting on a case stud...
Debates on the sounds of cities have focused on the often-used dichotomy of noise versus sound; yet for the decades of debate, few examples of policy, procedures, or case studies have made motions in acknowledging the diverse roles that sound plays in shaping our experience and understanding of the city: orienting us, creating memories, fostering h...
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed how people relate to and use outdoor spaces, particularly in densely populated areas. We investigate the transformations that took place during the 2020 lockdown and the first post-lockdown summer, with an emphasis on changes to the sound environment, in the context of a mixed-use central neighbourhood in Montreal...
In 2020, the pandemic impacted the social and economic dynamics of cities around the world. Entertainment districts hosting events, festivals, and other cultural activities were particularly affected, as their loss of attractiveness also impacted their livability. Reflecting on how the experience of the sonic environment contributes to attractivene...
Cities struggle to balance vitality and livability, and noise is at the center of many of these debates. Preconceived ideas on the sonic expectations and needs of groups of city users can be misleading, particularly in entertainment districts such as the Quartier des Spectacles in Montreal (CA). We investigated what life was like in QDS for its yea...
Le bruit environnemental – enjeu de santé publique et de qualité de vie – est encadré par différents paliers de gouvernement avec des prises en charge distinctes selon les États et régions du monde. Au Canada, le gouvernement fédéral, les provinces et les municipalités (et entités régionales et locales) se partagent la responsabilité du bruit prove...
Developing innovative noise policies that build on international best practices is difficult when policies around the world differ along many dimensions, ranging from different sources covered to different levels of governance involved. This is particularly critical in the context of road traffic, identified as one of the main culprits leading to n...
In Canada, there are three levels of governance (federal, provincial and municipal). We focus here on regulations related to environmental noise at the municipal level in the province of Quebec. We report on the main findings of a systematic review of 114 municipal regulations. The review covered regulations from 74 cities in Quebec, selected based...
Montreal’s Quartier des Spectacles – a central, one-square-kilometer downtown neighborhood, dedicated to housing most of the city’s festivals and artistic life as well as diverse groups of residents, students, and workers – provides a unique setting to investigate the livability-vitality debate that many cities are currently struggling with. In thi...
Large parks have been studied for their tranquil and restorative properties, including in the sonic dimension. The auditory experience of users in small urban public spaces, such as pocket parks is less well understood, especially as they can contain sound sources much more reflective of dense, urban activities. Musikiosk, a soundscape intervention...
Sound researchers have spent at least two decades converging on an established need for professionals of the built environment (PBEs) to exhibit sound ‘awareness’ and ‘literacy’. On the side of practice, PBEs are tasked with integrating and making sense of a wide array of details (of which sound is but one consideration) in order to create feasible...
The field of Sound Studies has changed and developed dramatically over the last two decades involving a vast and dizzying array of work produced by those working in the arts, social sciences and sciences. The study of sound is inherently interdisciplinary and is undertaken both by those who specialize in sound and by others who wish to include soun...
Despite growing scientific and anecdotal evidence on the effects of sound on the emotional and physical wellbeing of people, the auditory aspect of the urban experience has remained largely ignored and its effect on urban life (especially on the use of public spaces) has yet to be considered in earnest in current urban policy and design initiatives...
Decades of research support the idea that striving for lower sound levels is the cornerstone of protecting urban public health. Growing insight on urban soundscapes, however, highlights a more complex role of sound in public spaces, mediated by context, and the potential of soundscape interventions to contribute to the urban experience. We discuss...
This paper is an exploration into whether public space users performing different activities describe their auditory environments in noticeably different ways. Building on soundscape and psycholinguistic literature, a questionnaire study was conducted in a large park in Amsterdam (NL), where 92 park users described, in writing, their activities and...
Understanding the relationship between people and their soundscapes in an urban context of innumerable and diverse sensory stimulations is a difficult endeavor. What public space users hear and how they evaluate it in relation to their performed or intended activities can influence users’ engagement with their spaces as well as their assessment of...
Sound is receiving increasing attention in urban planning and design due to its effects on human health and quality of life. Soundscape researchers have sought ecologically valid measures to describe and explain the complex relationship between people and their auditory environments, largely employing laboratory studies and neglecting the active ro...
The relationship between activity and soundscape has recently garnered research attention, particularly in public spaces. In the summer of 2015, we installed an interactivesound system (Musikiosk) in a busy public park allowing users to play their own content over high-quality speakers. Questionnaires (N = 197) were administered over 3 conditions:...
Processes of urban transformation and technological advances are leading to drastic changes in urban environments and to novel local challenges for urban planners. Scientific research is exploring the potential of various technologies to support planning and Planning Support Systems (PSS) have been proposed as strategies to improve current planning...
Current studies in soundscape research indicate that the relationship between users of spaces and their soundscapes is influenced by users' activities as well as their characteristics (including age). However, few studies have focused on researching this influence in a systematic manner. Based on psycholinguistic theories on the existence of two au...
Combining surveys with other methods like observations can offer a more holistic understanding of participants' experience, with respect to activity and the evaluation of acoustic environments. Reconciling data from multiple methods remains a challenge for soundscape research, even in well-studied park settings. We compare 3 methods (behavioral map...
In the summer of 2015, we installed Musikiosk (an interactive sound system) in a busy public park allowing users to play their own content over high-quality speakers. Using mixed-methods, soundscape measurements were collected with questionnaires, recordings, interviews, logs, and observations. This analysis concentrates on quantitative findings fr...
The Habitats Assen Pilot was a joint initiative of INCAS 3 and Gemeente Assen that researched the interaction between human activity and the physical environment. During the four month duration of this pilot we used a multidisciplinary approach that used techniques from both human and physical sciences to investigate how professionals, locals and n...
Physical environments have specific characteristics affordances that can encourage, enable or inhibit the performance of certain activities by certain groups of users. Public spaces in particular are subject to numerous assessments of “publicness” that are dependant on the quality of affordances and activities present (or not). This paper explores...
Questions
Question (1)
I am interested in any new studies that detail on how urban form interacts with the way in which users of public spaces engage in activities and, particularly, the profile of these users and how the activities were categorized. I have read the "classics" on this and was wondering whether any new research has been performed on this, either from an urban planning or environmental psychology perspective. Thank you for any ideas.
