Soundscaping

Soundscaping is the practice of shaping and managing the acoustic environment of a space by selecting, arranging, and controlling sounds to influence perception, behavior, and well-being. It encompasses urban, architectural, natural, and digital contexts, drawing on acoustics, psychoacoustics, music, and environmental psychology.

The term builds on the concept of the soundscape, coined by R. Murray Schafer, who founded the World Soundscape Project in the 1970s to explore how people perceive and are affected by their acoustic surroundings. Acoustic ecology studies relationships between living beings and their sonic environments. Soundscaping has since evolved into a design practice and fieldwork in architecture, urban planning, parks, hospitals, and media installations.

Techniques include sound masking; selective amplification or attenuation of sound; placement of sound sources; material choices to absorb or reflect sound; landscaping to influence reflections using vegetation and water features; field recording and playback; interactive installations; and spatial audio technologies such as multi-channel or binaural sound. The practice uses qualitative listening as well as quantitative measures of loudness, spectral balance, speech intelligibility, and acoustic comfort.

Applications include urban planning and street design to reduce nuisance noise while preserving meaningful ambient sounds; interior and workplace design to promote comfort; hospitals, schools, museums, campuses; landscape design, parks, and nature reserves; and artistic or therapeutic installations.

Challenges include balancing competing interests, measuring subjective experience, and coordinating across disciplines. Trends include data-driven evaluation of soundscapes, ecoacoustic monitoring, and the use of digital augmentation and programmable soundscapes in public spaces.