Resonance – soundscapes of material and immaterial qualities of urban spaces

ABSTRACT

In European countries such as Denmark and the Netherlands, the compact city is regarded as a sustainable city model. Because of high density and intensity, the quality of the urban environment is essential for its success. As dense cities may also be experienced as ‘dense’ and ‘intense’ in terms of activity and sound, the acoustic environment of public urban spaces are currently attracting attention from such perspectives, including wider notions of ‘quiet’ and ‘resonance’. To study these phenomena, a case study was set up in Copenhagen and Amsterdam, and four typologies of urban public space were defined in each city. A questionnaire survey was conducted, and supported by transcribed soundtracks, respondents’ statements provided insight into their experience of the acoustic environment of these spaces, i.e. the soundscapes. Results indicate that the urban environment has the potential for offering environmental and existential resonance, and points to relations between sound quality and built density. This is of importance for both urban planning and the public health agenda. Based on these initial findings it is suggested that soundscape information may offer inspiration for rethinking compact city characteristics such as density and intensity, potentially stimulating cultural uniqueness and diversity and inspire ‘new typology thinking’.

KEYWORDS:

• Soundscape
• resonance
• public space
• compact city
• Copenhagen
• Amsterdam

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers as well as the editors for this Special Issue, for their detailed and thoughtful comments which significantly improved this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Hanne Wiemann Nielsen

Hanne Wiemann Nielsen is a PhD Fellow at the Division of Landscape Architecture and Planning, University of Copenhagen. Her research interest concerns urban planning and design, including the dimension of sound. She works with strategies for urban densification and the role of public space for sustainable and livable environment, and  pursues an interest for designing planning tools from a combined quantitative and qualitative methods perspective. She is a graduate from The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Architecture, and her career spans research and practice, nationally and internationally.

Gertrud Jørgensen

Gertrud Jørgensen is a Professor in spatial planning at the Section for Landscape Architecture and Planning, University of Copenhagen. She works with a broad variety of planning issues, including urban transformation in metropolitan and rural areas, use of public spaces and urban livability, and strategic planning. Her research interest lies in the relation between planning tools and processes and planning outcome in terms of spatial quality, sustainability and livable environments, which she has pursued at different scales from regional planning to urban design.

Ellen Marie Braae

Ellen Marie Braae has been a Professor of Landscape Architecture Theories and Methods at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, since 2009. Visiting Professor TU Delft 2018 and Chairman of the Danish Art Foundation for Architecture (2018-2021). The co-editor (with H. Steiner) of Research Companion to Landscape Architecture (Routledge) and the author of Beauty Redeemed. Recycling Post-Industrial Landscapes (Ikaros Press/Birkhäuser, Basel, 2015).