... bid time return,
so said the Earl of Salisbury (according to Shakespeare), and so says the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) - which has recently announced its trio of "Engineering Challenges", for which groups of researchers may apply for funding (details at
http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/funding/calls/towardengnmrcc/)
One of these Challenges is "Future Cities: engineering approaches that restore the balance between engineered and natural systems" which sounds at once interesting, laudable and vague and so exactly the kind of thing to stir the imagination and think up ways to improve our cities.
Though one might not initially think of one of the goals of an acoustician as being the restoration of balance in this way, perhaps in fact that is precisely what many of us are trying to do, at least in the fields of noise, room acoustics and underwater sound.
The soundscape concept (roughly, the aural equivalent to a landscape, but applicable indoors as well at out) is a useful one with which to explore this idea, by asking: what soundscapes do we wish to inhabit? If you're reading this on a train carriage shared with a group of football supporters or museum-bound school children, under a flight path or next door to a drum-kit, "a silent one" might be your response. Actually living in silence, however would quickly lose its charm (as anyone who has spent any time in an anechoic chamber will probably agree).
Maybe living or working in "a natural soundscape" is more appealing - birdsong, the wind through trees, waves on the shore, the falling of the rain. If those were all there was to hear though, most of us might be pining for music before long. And, when switching on the washing machine, vacuum cleaner, car, or lawn-mower, silence would be a rather uncomfortable result.
So perhaps, one might say that the ideal soundscape would be one that balances sounds which natural with some that are ... well, "engineered" is actually the best word I can find here. However, given that most of us probably are not entirely content with the soundscapes we work or travel in, and many of us feel the same way about those we live in, a bit of rebalancing could be welcome.
Initially the word "restore" seems an odd one for EPSRC to use in discussing the requirements for future cities but actually it may be an appropriate one for our soundscape ideals. Imagine the sound-world you might really like to live and work in and it might well be based on memories : maybe a quieter home with fewer machines, a cellular office, older music, fewer planes? Or perhaps a workspace where rather the hum of computers and the whisper of air conditioning, some outdoor sound drifted in through open windows?
Short of inventing a time machine or signing up for one of those BBC series where people pretend to live in the 1940s, this may seem an unhelpful conclusion. But looking closer at this idea of a remembered or otherwise idealised soundscape does lead to some concrete ideas as to what a soundscape with a "restored" balance between nature and engineering might mean.
For a start, a larger contribution by natural sounds would probably be welcome. Perhaps (as in my last blog) acoustic barriers with a vegetation layer might help, especially if the plants attracted birds and bees. Maybe the addition of recorded or synthesised natural sounds could help too - if carefully chosen, subtly used and properly trialled. Air conditioning with a slight temporal variation of shifted tonality might hint at waves on shores or wind in forests. Work has been done already (by Brigade electronic in particular) on warning systems which use "shushing" sounds rather than sirens or buzzers – and arguably such sounds are acceptable in part because they are more like natural ones. Recorded bird song in shopping centres is not new, though has often failed in the past through insufficient discussion with visitors before and during its installation. And of course, the rise of the electric car - which all agree must make sounds for safety reasons - gives us a whole new acoustic canvas which we have great freedom to colour with whatever sound seem best. Work is certainly required here to decide what sounds, and to what if any extent they might have natural elements, would be best - not just for individual cars, but for busy traffic too.
Whether any of these ideas are good, the time seems right to consider what kind of sound world we want - in part because many of these we have are becoming increasingly unsatisfactory. Many efforts have been and are being made to quieten our world, but in some areas, little further progress is possible - such in the areas of aircraft noise and neighbour noise. In such cases, it is certainly worth asking whether adding sounds can help (which is the essence of the whole soundscape approach to improving our acoustic environment).
This is a good time to be having these discussion for another reason: thanks to advances in solar power and other energy-harvesting systems, in computer technology and in the use of MEMS (Micro-Electronic Mechanical Systems) to build tiny acoustic devices, we now have highly effective, discreet, reliable, autonomous and adaptable sound-generating systems which would allow us to add whatever sounds we want, wherever we want them.
Before any such additions are made, it would be essential to bring together experts in the many disparate fields involved: psychologists, sociologists, noise consultants, engineers, acousticians, sound artists, architects and local authorities, and also second to find out, though well-designed and substantial social surveys, just what kind of balance between natural and engineered sounds people would really like to restore.
so said the Earl of Salisbury (according to Shakespeare), and so says the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) - which has recently announced its trio of "Engineering Challenges", for which groups of researchers may apply for funding (details at
http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/funding/calls/towardengnmrcc/)
One of these Challenges is "Future Cities: engineering approaches that restore the balance between engineered and natural systems" which sounds at once interesting, laudable and vague and so exactly the kind of thing to stir the imagination and think up ways to improve our cities.
Though one might not initially think of one of the goals of an acoustician as being the restoration of balance in this way, perhaps in fact that is precisely what many of us are trying to do, at least in the fields of noise, room acoustics and underwater sound.
The soundscape concept (roughly, the aural equivalent to a landscape, but applicable indoors as well at out) is a useful one with which to explore this idea, by asking: what soundscapes do we wish to inhabit? If you're reading this on a train carriage shared with a group of football supporters or museum-bound school children, under a flight path or next door to a drum-kit, "a silent one" might be your response. Actually living in silence, however would quickly lose its charm (as anyone who has spent any time in an anechoic chamber will probably agree).
Maybe living or working in "a natural soundscape" is more appealing - birdsong, the wind through trees, waves on the shore, the falling of the rain. If those were all there was to hear though, most of us might be pining for music before long. And, when switching on the washing machine, vacuum cleaner, car, or lawn-mower, silence would be a rather uncomfortable result.
So perhaps, one might say that the ideal soundscape would be one that balances sounds which natural with some that are ... well, "engineered" is actually the best word I can find here. However, given that most of us probably are not entirely content with the soundscapes we work or travel in, and many of us feel the same way about those we live in, a bit of rebalancing could be welcome.
Initially the word "restore" seems an odd one for EPSRC to use in discussing the requirements for future cities but actually it may be an appropriate one for our soundscape ideals. Imagine the sound-world you might really like to live and work in and it might well be based on memories : maybe a quieter home with fewer machines, a cellular office, older music, fewer planes? Or perhaps a workspace where rather the hum of computers and the whisper of air conditioning, some outdoor sound drifted in through open windows?
Short of inventing a time machine or signing up for one of those BBC series where people pretend to live in the 1940s, this may seem an unhelpful conclusion. But looking closer at this idea of a remembered or otherwise idealised soundscape does lead to some concrete ideas as to what a soundscape with a "restored" balance between nature and engineering might mean.
For a start, a larger contribution by natural sounds would probably be welcome. Perhaps (as in my last blog) acoustic barriers with a vegetation layer might help, especially if the plants attracted birds and bees. Maybe the addition of recorded or synthesised natural sounds could help too - if carefully chosen, subtly used and properly trialled. Air conditioning with a slight temporal variation of shifted tonality might hint at waves on shores or wind in forests. Work has been done already (by Brigade electronic in particular) on warning systems which use "shushing" sounds rather than sirens or buzzers – and arguably such sounds are acceptable in part because they are more like natural ones. Recorded bird song in shopping centres is not new, though has often failed in the past through insufficient discussion with visitors before and during its installation. And of course, the rise of the electric car - which all agree must make sounds for safety reasons - gives us a whole new acoustic canvas which we have great freedom to colour with whatever sound seem best. Work is certainly required here to decide what sounds, and to what if any extent they might have natural elements, would be best - not just for individual cars, but for busy traffic too.
Whether any of these ideas are good, the time seems right to consider what kind of sound world we want - in part because many of these we have are becoming increasingly unsatisfactory. Many efforts have been and are being made to quieten our world, but in some areas, little further progress is possible - such in the areas of aircraft noise and neighbour noise. In such cases, it is certainly worth asking whether adding sounds can help (which is the essence of the whole soundscape approach to improving our acoustic environment).
This is a good time to be having these discussion for another reason: thanks to advances in solar power and other energy-harvesting systems, in computer technology and in the use of MEMS (Micro-Electronic Mechanical Systems) to build tiny acoustic devices, we now have highly effective, discreet, reliable, autonomous and adaptable sound-generating systems which would allow us to add whatever sounds we want, wherever we want them.
Before any such additions are made, it would be essential to bring together experts in the many disparate fields involved: psychologists, sociologists, noise consultants, engineers, acousticians, sound artists, architects and local authorities, and also second to find out, though well-designed and substantial social surveys, just what kind of balance between natural and engineered sounds people would really like to restore.