Accelerating knowledge transfer from research to sound aware practice

Arnthrudur Gisladottir a) Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering, Aarhus University, Inge Lehmanns Gade 10, 8000 Aarhus, Denmark b) Niras A/S, Ceres Allé 3, 8000 Aarhus, Denmark 1

Trond Maag Federal Office for the Environment, 3003 Bern, Switzerland 2

ABSTRACT Sound is a crucial factor for the health of inhabitants in city environments and plays an essential role in people's general well-being and how they perceive spaces within the urban realm. However, sound is seldom an influential parameter within urban development projects unless there are regulations to fulfil. During the last decades, increased knowledge of the subject has been gained through research activities. Still, findings only slowly reach into the work fields of architects and urban designers. This paper presents a series of workshops designed to gain input on how the transfer of knowledge of urban sound from research findings to the urban planning and design practice could be accelerated. Furthermore, the paper explores how sound experience walks additionally can improve understanding of the relationship between sound and urban space. In particular, developed as city sound models, the walks can support practitioners' knowledge and public involvement in the acoustic environment.

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1. INTRODUCTION

Sound is not always understood as a planned and designed quality. In particular urban planners and designers have but don’t always recognise their abilities to influence how noises and sounds propagate and accumulate in urban spaces and how people experience these spaces. Current research shows that obstacles in transferring knowledge from science into practice can hinder a more sound-aware urban design practice. It is thus legible to focus on knowledge transfer and how experts could communicate results and findings on urban sound within research and practice.

2. WORKSHOP SERIES “SOUND AWARE CITIES”

The planned workshop series is designed to gain increased knowledge of how to utilize expert knowledge, focusing on research findings on the urban sound environment in urban planning and design practice. This approach is in line with the call for a more holistic consideration of sound in urban development projects, including the relationship between morphological and architectural aspects and the sound environment. The workshop series' background and design are described in more detail by Gisladottir [1] and briefly outlined hereafter.

1 argi@niras.dk 2 trond.maag@bafu.admin.ch

Invitations to the workshops are mainly aimed at professionals, both within the public and private sectors, engaged in urban development at different stages. The target group includes urban planners, urban designers, architects, landscape architects, and other decision-makers relevant to the design process.

The workshop series is developed with outset in the two following research topics, examined by Gisladottir [1]:

 The obstacles of transferring expert knowledge to practice: It involves the way practitioners within the urban design practice navigate within knowledge that can inform urban development, especially concerning environmental factors. Also, the methods of seeking and acquiring knowledge and the preferred presentation format can slow down knowledge transfer, as so can the quality and representation of existing dissemination material.  The relationship between architectural elements and the urban sound environment: It includes the current research findings and their relevance to the urban planning and design practice, the research design and eligibility for transfer to practice and the extent of the available research.

Each workshop is planned as a whole day event, initiating with lectures with a twofold goal: 1. Expanding the participants' knowledge with design-related impulses on environmental noise or urban sound. 2. As preparation for discussion and participation in the collaborative second part of the workshop.

The second collaborative part of the workshop involves tasks and subjects of discussion, mainly reflecting on the framework for disseminating expert knowledge, as proposed by Gisladottir [1], and in general on the use of technical expertise in practice. The topics regarding dissemination are divided into three domains: 1. The content, amount and extent of information; 2. the relevance of information and 3. the presentation of information.

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3. SOUND EXPERIENCE WALKS AS OPENING TO THE WORKSHOP

The workshop format presented above involves people from differentiated backgrounds. Although they are engaged in urban planning and design, they don't necessarily have the same work practice but have developed specific approaches within their disciplines. A workshop on urban sound with all its facets and complexity can raise some challenges when people across the urban design disciplines, who might not have met before, are invited to inform and discuss the process of knowledge transfer. In order to build a shared understanding of the workshop context and avoid fundamental misunderstandings about the topic, the workshop can kick off with a short walk guided by the authors. The key objective of the walk is to direct the participants into the common sense of the workshop to start it from a specific point. The walk can build a reference for the entire workshop, as discussions can be related to the observations during the walk. As outlined in [2], walking is an important social activity in public spaces and can be performed by most participants. It is also a simple activity that does not need any specific infrastructure: It can be repeated anytime and anywhere, either alone or in small groups. During the workshop walk, the group typically observes a series of places that attract the listeners' attention because of their acoustic characteristics. Participants learn to differentiate between public spaces and soon understand how noises and sounds interrelate with urban spaces and how planning and design can influence or even activate such observations, for example, by altering noise sources or modifying surface structures and materials. During the workshop, participants always can refer to these places and observations and use them as reference points to compare and include them in the workshop discussions.

The sound experience walks used for the workshop should not be confused with the soundwalk approach that has gained importance in soundscape studies in recent years [3]. In the workshop context, the guided tour intends to give an impulse for the workshop topic and is not necessarily a tool to observe and analyse the sounds of a specific space in a given context. For example, walks in Esch and Belval were developed as part of Esch2022, the European Capital of Culture [4]. The project intends to draw the walker's attention to the topic of urban sound within urban design processes, addressing people who can develop a sound-aware practice within their discipline. Among others, geography students were invited to join a one-hour guided tour in their early semesters. During the final discussion, the students raised many questions about how sound propagates and accumulates in urban spaces and which factors are relevant, how to document sound in written and graphical form and communicate observations from the walks. It turned out that approximately 5 out of 15 students showed an increased interest in the topic and are thinking of working with it during their studies and maybe taking it to a master's degree subsequently. The walk's momentum inspired young researchers on the topic, shaping a more sound-aware work practice within the geography disciplines.

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Figure 1: Route of a sound experience walk in Esch/Belval. Photo: Trond Maag

While working with another group of persons from Luxembourg University and the City of Esch for preparing the routes in Esch and Belval, a remarkable observation became evident. During the final discussion, after a 90 minutes walk, a workshop participant met a colleague who spontaneously invited the entire group to visit the city dwells in the area where the walk happened. The dwells, providing clean drinking water, are also the water source for the city fountains. While visiting the dwells, the sound of Esch's fountains and how it can shape the experience of public spaces became very tangible, showing the municipal departments, machines and technologies involved and the factors like precipitation, climate change and others that influence the water and its sound. The spontaneous, unplanned visit unveiled an entire chain of elements below the surface of a simple thing - the sound of a fountain - and how it is interlinked acoustically with the urban space.

Gaining knowledge on the relationship between urban sound, space and designers who influence specific elements, deliberately or not, and building a reference from where impulses can bring a discussion alive can pave the way to use a particular walk as a tool for designing and communicating knowledge. The walk has a model-like character that builds a stable environment for projects and research, though urban sounds are highly volatile and unpredictable. They are similar to mock-ups in a 1:1 city scale on which actors can study ideas, develop, design and redesign them continually. They are fruitful to bring knowledge for planning and designing the

urban space to a co-creative and resident-grown level beyond standards and regulations. They can also facilitate a knowledge transfer between a range of actors and disciplines.

4. FINAL REMARKS

The workshop series described here was initially planned for 2020 but was cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The workshops were scheduled to inform practitioners who work with the urban development of the relationship between the urban fabric and the urban sound environment. Another purpose was to gain inputs on a framework for disseminating material for improved transfer of research findings regarding the urban sound environment to practice, as proposed in [1]. Despite the cancellation of the workshop series, the subject and outreach of the workshops are found highly relevant to enhance a more sound aware practice when it comes to the planning and design of cities.

Complemented with an introductory city walk to experience on-site and in a realistic setting how planning and design might influence the quality of the public space, where even simple details of the built, natural and social space and a few steps can make an audible difference, the workshop series is a promising tool to accelerate knowledge transfer.

5. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The example of accelerating sound-aware design referenced in this paper was generously supported by Esch2022, Cultural Capital of Culture, and Administration de l’Environnement Luxembourg.

6. REFERENCES

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1. Gisladottir, A. Transferring knowledge of urban sound - Informing the urban planning and

design practice with sound-aware expertise. PhD thesis , Aarhus University, 2022. 2. Maag, T., Bosshard, A. & Anderson, S., 2019: Developing soundaware cities: a model for

implementing sound quality objectives within urban design and planning processes, Cities & Health. https://doi.org/10.1080/23748834.2019.1624332 3. Radicchi, A., 2017. A pocket guide to soundwalking. Some introductory notes on its origin,

established methods and four experimental variations. In: A. Besecke, et al., eds.. Perspectives on urban economics – a general merchandise store. Berlin: Universitätsverlag der TU Berlin, 70–73. 4. Michel, P. & Rischard, A., 2022: Esch2022 / Lauschend durch die Stadt: Bei drei ‚Soundwalks‘

kann man Esch entdecken. Tageblatt [online]. Available from: https://www.tageblatt.lu/headlines/lauschend-durch-die-stad-drei-soundwalks- lassen-esch-entdecken/. [Accessed 03 Mai 2022].