Combined soundwalks and lightwalks

ABSTRACT

Health and wellbeing are strongly influenced by what our senses perceive or cannot help perceiving. In city planning – like in most parts of our culture – vision is privileged, while the other senses are often neglected. In line with environmental policies to abate any kind of pollution, the importance of favorable sensory environments is increasingly realized. Soundwalks – as one type of sensewalks – have the most advanced methodology but walks for the other senses have also become more common. Sensewalks are usually done for only one sense at a time. But urban environments are multisensory, and perceptions – not only objectively measurable facts – play a major role for health and wellbeing. Therefore, multisensory walks are proposed as an appropriate method to generate knowledge about citizens’ perceptions as an integral part of urban planning. As a first step, a combined sound- and lightwalk was conceived. It was performed as an experiential walk focusing on two stressors – sounds/noise and artificial light(pollution) – that have a major impact on human health and wellbeing. After a brief description of the method, the first results are reported and further developments are suggested. Since lightwalks focus on artificial night lighting, combined sound- and lightwalks are restricted to the specific timespace of the night.

KEYWORDS:

• Soundwalks
• lightwalks
• sensory walk
• sensory urbanism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Dietrich Henckel

Dietrich Henckel, Prof. Dr., Diploma and PhD in Konstanz, Researcher at the University of Stuttgart, German Institute of Urban Affairs Berlin (Difu) 1979-2004, professor for Urban and Regional Economics at the Institute for Urban and Regional Planning TU Berlin 2004-2017. Main topics: Technological change and urban development, urban temporalities, light pollution, urban security. Numerous publications in these fields.