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The Soundscape of Modernity
Ambient Visualization 
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This experimental research explores a kind of “noise” with a particular relationship to architecture. Building on the work of Brian Eno, it studies how architecture can manipulate the soundscape of modernity to create a new ambiance. When architects design spaces that are elegant, scientific, clean, and controlled, a byproduct is the ambient soundscape of modernity. No sound exists outside of space and no space is entirely silent. Sound and space reinforce each other in our perception and link to our experience, our mood, and how we perceive sound and space. Ambiance as a soundscape arises out of the human activity and the technologies of environmental design. It is experienced as the noise of modernity. If Brian Eno could find music in modern architecture, can we design an architecture that can produce its own Music? Can we transfer or translate existing sound to ambient music through architecture? Can we make ambient music driven by the soundscape of modernity and synchronized with its environment? Can the characteristics and sound effects of architectural spaces convert the noise of modernity into new ambient music?

Technology entering modernity such as the elevator brought noise problems associated with operation. This is where elevator music became key. Elevator music tunes out what should not be heard.

Architects design spaces that are elegant, scientific, clean, and controlled and a byproduct is the ambient of the soundscape of modernity.

In my analysis, I used Rhino/Grasshopper software to analyze the movement of sound through different spaces. This analysis shows how sound and space reinforce each other and sounds change based on the size, geometry, materiality, and layers of the wall.

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Location

Room 402 - School of Architecture - Syracuse - NY

Timeline

2018

Advisor

Mark Linder

Status

Unbuilt

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