![Sample our Built Environment journals, sign in here to start your access, Latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5926/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Built-Environment.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
In this article, we advance a design anthropological approach to the ‘problem’ of urban traffic noise, through noise transformation. Drawing on an interdisciplinary collaboration between design anthropology and sound art and design, we discuss how noise transformation opens up new possibilities for the generation of wellbeing. To undertake this we interrogate the human-technology-environment configurations, improvisatory character, materiality and temporality of traffic noise and transformed sound. We argue that conceptualising noise transformation as a form of revaluing which remains open to the possibilities of human perception, offers a viable theoretical framing and practical strategy. It moreover, we suggest, offers a way forward in the face of the perennial problem of traffic noise, which has no viable technological solution.
Acknowledgments
This research was funded through a Transurban Innovation Grant in partnership with RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. The authors also thank the wider research team and all of the people who gave their time and enthusiasm to participate in our research.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. Live recordings of the noise transformations are available online here: https://sites.rmit.edu.au/transurbaninnovationgrantrmit2016/audio/.