17 September 2021Italy

Soundscape in urban and building design

rescheduled from 4 September 2020

How to protect our cities from noise? How to use sound as a design resource? How is noise different from sound?

The event aims at raising awareness of the importance of sound in the built environment and in the integration of human activities with the natural landscape, especially the Alpine one. The goal is to promote a discussion on how policy makers, planners and designers can work to reduce negative impacts and foster positive impacts that sounds can have on people´s health and well-being. In the first part of the day, the event will host a series of talks that will introduce the concept of soundscape both at urban level (outdoor soundscape) and in the built environment (indoor soundscape), the methodologies and tools applicable in the planning and design phases, with reference to the recent standardization framework (ISO 12913) and to scientific research in the various disciplines involved. Talks and presentations will be given by Francesco Aletta (University College London), Mauro Graziani (State Conservatory of Music “Francesco Antonio Bonporti” of Trento), Antonella Radicchi (TU Berlin), Christian Tibone (Regional Agency for Environmental Protection and Prevention of Aosta Valley), and Simone Torresin (UNITN, Eurac Research).

In the second half of the day, sound walks will be organized in the city of Trento, with the aim of inviting participants to tune to the acoustic context in which they are immersed every day, focusing on its noises and sounds, its sound sources, the context in which sounds are perceived, and how this results in a particular perceptual outcome.

The event is organized by the University of Trento – Department of Civil, Environmental and Mechanical Engineering, and is open to citizens, the university community, policy makers, practitioners, designers, and urban planners.