Original post can be found here
But do we tend to associate certain sounds with certain rooms? Do the spaces speak?

It is a common knowledge that we experience places not only by seeing but also by listening. In Spaces Speak, Are You Listening?, Barry Blesser and Linda- Ruth Salter take advance of his long career in audio engineering and her experience regarding space, and they examine auditory spatial awareness. They introduce the notion of aural architecture, integrating contributions from a wide range of disciplines such as architecture, music, acoustics, psychology, art and many others. According to them, when we think of architecture, we tend to visualize the properties of space that can be seen, especially boundaries like walls and surfaces. In contrast, aural architecture has aural boundaries. Moreover, the aural and acoustic attributes of a space have an influence on the moods and feeling of those who inhabit it. Searching for a certain high-impact space is easier than trying to construct it, since it is impossible to auralize a space that has never been experienced. So, it is obvious that we tend to listen to the unique voice of certain spaces but without realizing it most of the times.
But what happens when we leave our home? How we tend to aurally experience the city? The French philosopher and phenomenologist Jean- Francois Augoyard at the Centre de researche sur l’espace sonore et l’ environment urbain (CRESSON) at the National School of Architecture of Grenoble and lead soundscape researcher, makes an innovative approach. In his book, Sonic experience, a guide on everyday sounds, he introduces the notion of sonic effect, and he provides a sourcebook full of auditory examples with a distinctive architectural and urban context. Nevertheless, he clearly uses the notion of R. Murray’s soundscape and Pierre Schaeffer’s sound object. Augoyard believes that never before has the everyday contemporary soundtrack of urban space been so cacophonous, and he hopes to enrich our understanding of what it is to listen and the role sound plays to our environment.
Following the same path with CRESSON Bjorn Hellstrom, the writer of Noise Design: Architectural Modelling and the Aesthetics of Urban Acoustic Space, takes a structural approach to urban acoustic space. While most regulations adopt a defensive attitude towards noise, as unwanted sound, Hellstrom believes that urban noise, transient and immaterial as it is, makes public and private space less predictable and less monotonous, having a direct connection to transparent and fluid space, which is a central principle of contemporary architectural composition.
But is this transformation of the contemporary urban soundscape in the Western World, the result of major cultural and technological changes that took place in the beginning of 20^th century? Emily Thomson, in her book The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900-1933, agrees that the dramatic transformations in what people heard and how they listened, were the result of the prevalence of a new aural culture. The new sound of the modern technology changed radically the experience of sonic space. This is a fact that you can visually notice for example when you experience the architecture of Boston’s Symphony Hall, which was built in 1900s and the architecture of Radio City Music Hall, which was built in the 1930’s. The architectural composition of these two stages is mainly the result of acoustics but its function changes entirely in these two cases.
The result of this journey is that; the connection between soundscapes and architecture is not a new but an ancient one. While the soundscape of the world changes, as R. Murray Schafer has stated in his book that introduced the notion of soundscape, modern man should learn to inhabit a world with an acoustic environment radically different from any other era. I believe that contemporary architects should stop designing for people without senses and focus on real space rather than space constructed by bits!


References:
Blesser, Barry and Linda-Ruth Salter. Spaces Speak, Are You Listening?: Experiencing aural architecture. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2007. Print.
Auguyard, Jean-Francois and Henry Torgue. Sonic experience, a guide on everyday sounds. Quebec: McGill- Queen’s University Press, 2005. Print.
Hellstrom, Bjorn. Noise Design: Architectural Modelling and the Aesthetics of Urban Acoustic Space. (Doctoral Dissertation, School of Architecture, Royal Institute of Technology, KTH) Gotenborg: Reproman AB, 2003. Print.
Thomson, Emily. The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900-1933. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2004. Print.
Schafer, R. Murray. The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World. Vermont: Destiny Books, 1977,1994. Print

Picture sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Enraged_Musician
Second photograph is courtesy of Alex Stogiannis; Stockholm’s central station January 2013.
http://bicycleresearchproject.blogspot.gr/2013/01/18-emily-thompsons-soundscape-of.html

 The original article is posted here.

Taking a cue from fellow blogger Joseph Young and his blog posts about the 100th anniversary of Noises Manifesto, the words of Luigi Russolo about the great modern city came to my mind. According to Russolo, the city was characterized mainly by the sounds of the machine, as he was always in search of the music in technology as a true futurist that he was. 

  

My curiosity about connections between sound and architecture made me take a different path, so I researched musicians who have taken an interest in the city and architecture as a source of inspiration. Iannis Xenakis was a genius who used his personal memories of crowd, demonstrations and battles that took place in the city of Athens, during the German occupation in the Second World War, as a row music material, a true war soundscape. Using his own words “The whole world has observed the sonic phenomena regarding a large politicized crowd of hundreds of thousands of people. The human river recites a slogan with dissent rate. Afterwards another slogan is heard from the head of the demonstration and is transmitted until the end, by replacing the first one. So, a wave of transition starts from the head until the end of the demonstration. The clamor fills the city, the inhibitory power of the voice and the rhythm is the highest that could ever be. It is about an event particularly bright and beautiful regarding its own ferociousness. Thereafter, there is the conflict between the protestors and the enemy. The perfect rhythm of the last slogan decays in a vast crowd of chaotic screams that are transmitted until the end of the demonstration. Let’s imagine additional to that the bursts of the machineguns and the whistle of the bullets that add their intonation in this complete disarray. Then, very quickly, the crowd is dissolved, the sonic and the visual hell is succeeded by an explosive calmness, full of despair, death and dust.”  (Iannis Xenakis, 21).

 Iannis Xenakis' studies and his profession as an architect and engineer (these two were considered to be almost the same by Greek Universities in previous decades), as Makis Solomos marked in his book about Xenakis, affected deeply his music in terms of practical mathematics and a holistic spatial notion of sound. 

But can the opposite also be true? Can we find examples of architectural structures that are affected mainly by sound? As an architect and a theorist Juhani Pallasmaa stated in his book The Architecture of image: Existential Space in Cinema, since the 1970s architects have fervently sought connections with other art forms—such as seeking inspiration in painting, sculpture, literature and music. Architects’ interest in infusing their work with echoes of other art forms indicates that the architecture has become uncertain of its essence and future course. 

 Searching deeper in older historical periods, such as 1950s, I came across Steen E. Rasmussen’s classic architectural theory book Experiencing Architecture. Steen E. Rasmussen, a Danish architect and urban planner, acknowledged that “It is possible to speak of hearing architecture.” He believed that sound is a major factor of architecture—even if many of us could say that a building does not produce sound, and therefore cannot be heard. But isn't this also true about light? A building does not radiate light, yet it can be seen. Rasmussen concludes, “Though you cannot hear whether or not it is good architecture, neither is it certain you can see whether it is good or not, you can both see and hear if a building has character.” (Steen E. Rasmussen, 224).

And as I continued my journey exploring contemporary architecture, I came across the work of Peter Zumthor, a Swiss architect and winner of the 2009 Pritzker Prize, whose work I have always admired. As he claimed in his book Atmospheres, “The Sound of a Space” is one of the nine aspects that concerned him in order to generate a certain atmosphere in his buildings. He believes that interiors are like large instruments that collect sound, amplifying and transmitting it somewhere. According to Zumthor, that particular sound of his spaces has to do with the shape peculiar to each room, with the surfaces of the materials they contain and the materials that have been applied. 

But do we tend to associate certain sounds with certain rooms? Do the spaces speak? To be continued...

References:

Σολωμός, Μάκης. Iannis Xenakis: the Universe of an Idiosyncratic Creator. Αθήνα: εκδόσεις Αλεξάνδρεια, 2008. Print.

Pallasmaa, Juhani. The Architecture of Image: Existential Space in Cinema. Helsinki: Rakennustieto Publishing, 2007. Print.

Rasmussen, Steen E. Experiencing Architecture. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1959, 1964. Print.

Zumthor, Peter. Atmospheres: Architectural Environments Surrounding Objects. Basel: Birkhauser, 2006, 2010. Print.

Picture sources:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kunsthofpassage_Dresden.jpg

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Expo58_building_Philips.jpg

http://littlespeakeasy.com/?p=318

What do you hear when you listen to the Earth?

The World Listening Project invites you to participate in "Listen to the Earth," a global event that happens during Earth Week. Listen to the Earth activities include listening to one's soundscape, field recordings, soundwalks, performances, other practices that pertain to acoustic ecology, and more.
 

http://act.earthday.org/event/listen-earth-2012


http://www.worldlisteningproject.org/
 

My answer :

“24 hours, 5 gardens and 1 digital recorder”

a series of field recordings in the seaside "Nea Paralia" of Thessaloniki.

Listen to the track 

As an inhabitant of a Greek city, I find it very hard to come across nature in my everyday life. Unlike other European cities with numerous vast parks like Munich, Stockholm, e.t.c. Thessaloniki lacks one, so the seaside is the only opportunity to Listen To The Earth!

On the seaside of Thessaloniki a new architectural project of urban regeneration is taking place. The architects of the project, Prodromodos Nikiforidis and Bernard Cuomo, succeeded in making a high quality urban space, even if parts of their design were not accomplished. The seaside of the city is a very strong limit between the city and the sea, man and nature. The design proposal uses as a first guideline the previous statement and as a second, the idea of appropriation; People feel free to use the urban space and express themselves as they pleased.

At the present time, April 2012, the design is separated in five gardens (the other ones are under construction). These gardens have strong natural elements, which I would like to highlight using my field recordings as an approach to the main question, What do you hear when you listen to the Earth?

The field recordings held during the night of 20-21^th of April and during the midday of 21^th of April. After selecting the ones I found more interesting, I reorganized their sequence in order to match the architectural pattern of the gardens. First you will listen to “the garden of music” during the nighttime and afterward during the daytime. The second one is “the garden of water” which has by far the most natural elements combined (also nighttime and midday), third is “the garden of memory”, forth “the garden of roses” and last “the garden of sound”. During the final minute you can listen to the seaside being resonated by the strong wind.

As a result I would like to stress how powerful listening is and how intensely you can experience the architectural environment through that sense. Moreover, considering the different natural elements, space qualities change drastically between day and night (birds during the daytime, frogs during nighttime, windy days, e.t.c.). These changes occur in such ways that traditional means of architectural design cannot predict. 
 

STATISTICS FOR THE OTHER 90%

WATER AND SANITATION
- More than one billion people do not have access to safe drinking water. Nearly two billion people live without access to basic sanitation. (American Journal Of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene)
- One of five children - nearly 400 million - have no access to safe water. (UNICEF)
- Each day, 3900 children die because they lack access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation. (UNICEF)
- Waterborne diseases are estimated to cause more than two million deaths annually. (American Journal Of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene)

source: Design for the Other 90%, Cynthia E. Smith



In what ways could I, as a designer, make a difference?

Here are some examples which prove that design can really save the world!


LIFESTRAW





















DESIGNER: Vestergaard Frandsen
MANUFACTURER: Vestergaard Frandsen S.A.
China and Switzerland, 2005
High impact polystyrene (outer shell), halogen-based resin, anion exchange resin, and patented activated carbon (interior)
DIMENSIONS: 10 hx1 diameter
USED IN : Ghana, Nigeria, Pakistan, Uganda
About half of the world's poor suffer from waterborne diseases, and more than 6000 people, mainly children, die each day by consuming unsafe drinking water. Lifestraw, a personal mobile water-purification tool, is designed to turn any surface water into drinking water. It has proven to be effective against waterborne diseases such as typhoid, cholera, dysentery, and diarrhea, and removes particles as small as fifteen microns.
read more



Q DRUM















DESIGNER: P.J. and J.P.S. Hendriske
MANUFACTURER: Kaymac Rotomoulders and Pioneer Plastics South Africa, 1993
Linear Low Density Polyethelene (LLDPE)
DIMENSIONS: 14 hx19,5 diameter
USED IN: Angola, Cote d' Ivoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania
Millions around the world, especially in rural Africa, live kilometers from a reliable source of clean water, leaving them vulnerable to cholera, dysentery, and other waterborne diseases. Water in adequate quantities is too heavy to carry. The Q Drum is a durable container designed to roll easily and transport seventy five liters of clean and portable water. Rolling the water in a cylindrical container, rather than lifting and carrying it, eases the burden of bringing water to those who need it.
read more


source: Design for the Other 90%, Cynthia E. Smith

FOR MORE INFORMATION CLICK HERE

Blog Action Day is an annual event held every October 15 that unites the world’s bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day with the aim of sparking discussion around an issue of global importance.
Blog Action Day 2009 will be one of the largest-ever social change events on the web.
All you have to do is register to blogactionday and put up a post relating to the topic of climate change on October 15th.

ΚΤΙΡΙΑ ΚΑΙ ΡΥΠΑΝΣΗ

Όπως είναι γνωστό τα κτίρια εκτός από από καταναλωτές μεγάλου ποσοστού ενέργειας, είναι και απελπιστικά ρυπογόνα. Αν και συγκριτικά με τις μεγάλες βιομηχνίες που είναι πρώτες στην εκπομπή ρύπων, συγκεκριμένα στην Ελλάδα που δεν έχουμε σχεδόν καθόλου βαριά βιομηχανία (ευτυχώς), τα κτίρια είναι μάλλον πρώτα.
Αν σκεφτούμε βέβαια πως εδώ που ζουμε, 6 μήνες ζέστη (χωρίς θέρμανση αλλά με κλιματιστικό), ότι το είχε προβλέψει ο ανώνυμας έλληνας αρχιτεχνίτης στην παραδοσιακή αρχιτεκτονική, με τα κατάλληλα ανοίγματα, ποσανατολισμό, ημιυπαίθριους (όχι τους σημερινούς ανύπαρκτους που γίνονται για να κερδίζουν τετραγωνικά τα δωμάτια) και εμείς οι μοντέρνοι και οι ευρωπαίοι τον φτύσαμε και τον διαγράψαμε, καταλαβαίνουμε την βλακεία και την στενοκεφαλιά μας όταν τα βλέπουμε μπροστά τα μάτια μας μέσα στα ευρωπαικά βιβλία για βιοκλιματικό σχεδιασμό. Μάλλον ο Κωνσταντινίδης, όπως και τόσοι άλλοι διάσημοι και μη, έλληνες και μη αρχιτέκτονες, δεν ήταν τόσο χαζός όταν μελετούσε τις προσφυγικές παράγκες, έβαζε ημιπαιθρίους και έφτιαχνε φυσικά κλιματιστικά.
Οπότε πριν καταφύγουμε σε μια σύγχρονη βιβλιογραφία, μήπως θα έπρεπε να πάμε μια βόλτα σε κάποιο παραδοσιακό οικισμό; Ή να ξεσκονίσουμε τα σχέδια και τα βιβλία της αποτύπωσης και της ιστορίας της αρχιτεκτονικής;
Μπορεί να μην βρούμε τις αρχιτεκτονιές, τις σύγχρονες ντιζαινιές και τις γκλαμουράτες κατοικίες που αξίζουν χιλιάδες ευρώ για να κατασκευαστούν και να λειτουργήσουν, αποβάλοντες απίστευτες ποσότητες ρύπων για να θερμανθούν ή να ψυχθούν αντιστοίχως, αλλά σίγουρα θα βρούμε έξυπνους χειρισμούς για τον φυσικό αερισμό, κλιματισμό και εξυπνότερο σχεδιασμό.




















Δημήτρης & Σουζάνα Αντωνακάκη / Σπίτι διακοπών
στον Οξύλιθο, Ι (Εύβοια, 1973)
(φωτ. από τη μονογραφία "ATELIER 66/The Architecture of Dimitris and
Suzana Antonakakis/Edited by Kenneth Frampton/Rizzoli, NY)
http://osgouros.blogspot.com/
















Πάνορμο Ρεθύμνου, "Καλύβα" παραγωγού
(φωτ. Odyss,2005)
http://osgouros.blogspot.com/



Κάποια εντυπωσιακά στατιστικά στοιχεία
Τα ευρωπαικά κτίρια στο συνολό τους:

Καταναλώνουν το 40% της συνολικής ενέργειας

Ευθύνονται για το 35% των εκπομπών αερίων θερμοκηπίου
50% των εκπομπών SO2, 35% των εκπομπών CO2
25% των εκπομπών NOx και 10% των εκπεμπόμενων σωματιδίων

Καταναλώνουν το 35% των πρώτων υλών

Ευθύνονται για το 10-35% των δομικών αποβλήτων

Διαθέτουν Η/Μ εγκαταστάσεις χαμηλής απόδοσης

Τελική Κατανάλωση Ενέργειας (2004)
471.7 106 ΤΙΠ σε κτίρια (41.3% του συνόλου)
Από τα οποία 299.7 106 ΤΙΠ σε κατοικίες (26.3%) &
131.3 106 ΤΙΠ σε κτίρια τριτογενή τομέα (11.5%)


Για να αντιμετωπιστεί αυτή η κατάσταση απαιτούνται :

Σωστός σχεδιασμός (βιοκλιματικός σχεδιασμός)

Νέες πρακτικές κατασκευής, υλικά, έλεγχος κατασκευής κ.α.

Εγκατάσταση Η/Μ εγκαταστάσεων υψηλής απόδοσης και ΑΠΕ

Εφαρμογή Νομοθετικού Πλαισίου (εφαρμογή Ε.Ο. 91/2002, 32/2006)

Δημιουργία μηχανισμών ελέγχου

Beatrice: Hunger bites Kenya

Αυθαίρετες αποστρατείες αξιωματικών για κομματικούς λόγους, παράνομες μεταθέσεις που στη συνέχεια ακυρώνονται από τα δικαστήρια, στημένοι διαγωνισμοί για προσλήψεις και προαγωγή των «ημέτερων». Αυτά είναι τα χαρακτηριστικά του πυροσβεστικού σώματος, όπως αποκάλυψε στο tvxs ο απόστρατος αρχιπύραρχος κ.Χρυσανθακόπουλος.





Τώρα η νέ δημοκρατία βρίσκει εχθρούς εκεί που παλιότερα η ίδια παράταξη έβρισκε φίλους, το '61 που είχαν ψηφίσει και κάτι πεύκα αν δεν θυμόσαστε.



πηγή tvxs

For the past three years, Greenpeace has been investigating the cattle industry in Brazil. Not only is the cattle industry the chief source of CO2 emissions in Brazil and also responsible for 80% of deforestation in the Amazon, it is also the largest single driver of deforestation anywhere in the world.

Our investigation exposed the Brazilian government's complicity in bankrolling the companies responsible for deforestation in the Amazon, as well as several top name shoe brands such as Adidas, Nike, Reebok, and Timberland whose demand for leather may be supporting cattle ranchers that are illegally slaughtering the Amazon.

Write to these shoemakers now and tell them to protect the Amazon and the climate:

http://www.greenpeace.org/every_step_...

Music credits:
"Ever Falling"
Written & performed by Amon Tobin
Published by Just Isn't Music
Courtesy of Ninja Tune
From the album FOLEY ROOM
http://www.amontobin.com

Every Step Counts To Save the Amazon