In parts of Sydney, families occupy half the apartments and many value their convenient location. Yet, despite a surge in development, most apartments are one or two bedrooms and not family-friendly.
Quiet hour is a strategy aimed at making retail spaces more inclusive for people who struggle with sensory overload, but they’re not the only ones who welcome a pause in the assault on their senses.
It’s going to get loud.
Alexey Laputin/Shutterstock.com
In Sydney, families with children now account for one in four households living in apartments. The expectations and design of apartments have not kept up with this rapid demographic change.
Under the El tracks, downtown Chicago.
Franck Michel
New research shows that noise pollution in US cities is concentrated in poor and minority communities. Beyond regulating airplane noise, the US has done relatively little to curb noise pollution.
The village bell was once a powerful symbol of sonic identity. Living in the noise of today’s global cities, what sounds exist that express our communal identity?
Eric Fidler/flickr
Sound, as a still relatively unexplored medium of urban design, provides an obvious starting point in the search for new relationships and identities in the contemporary city.
Noise transformation and community-led design projects are reclaiming unwanted spaces that lay adjacent to motorways.
rogiro/flickr
Communities have an increasing desire to be informed and included in local art, design and infrastructure projects. This has inspired new ways of dealing with noise-afflicted areas.
When they hear the music, some people want to dance. Other shoppers want to flee.
Justin/flickr
Unlike vision or touch, sound is much more difficult to control or avoid; music in particular spills across thresholds and intrudes into situations where it is unwelcome.
The author began hearing the sound at night, between the hours of 10 and 11 p.m.
'Street' via www.shutterstock.com
Shortly after Glen MacPherson started hearing strange humming noises, he created the World Hum and Database Project so people around the world could document their own experiences with the Hum.
Too much background noise has been linked to heart disease, strokes and even holding back children’s learning.
Urban noise pushes birds to sing in high pitch and ship sound deafens whales and dolphins.
John Haslam, Eric Bégin, IK's World Trip, Green Fire Productions, flickker photos, Jay Ebberly / Flickr
After travelling through the bush, returning to the cacophonies of the sonic city can be exhilarating. The body is immediately swamped with an energy that speaks of action, progress, and possibility.