A Sonic
Designing with sound acts
M.C.L. de Beer (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
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Abstract
To listen and to make a noise, as sonic acts, formed the premise of the project. Continuing a lineage of inquiry of human conduct that is underpinned by the notion that humans engage in purposeful behaviour; the sonic act in the field of architecture questions how people behave sonically in their environments. The importance of this spatial query is underpinned by the premise that sound is critical for experiential engagement and a defining feature of phenomenological attributes of spaces.
As with many forms of praxeological inquiries that have given form to the typologies of buildings we have come to know and love; the project was underpinned by continual introspection as to the sonic inhabitation of spaces. Throughout the iterative design phases of the project, continual cycles of questions were being asked- What is the sonic behaviour and how does this form spatially (Vis-à-vis)?
The project is situated in Valparaiso, Chile. On the steeps slopes between plan and hill. Drawing on the strong sonic research component the outcome presents four primary spatial interventions that each hold diverse qualities for the sonic act of presence to occur. These are a learning centre; collective school environment; market square; and Sonic Vantage point. Each of which serve as precedent for the utilisation of the sonic act as being a core design tool in defining the spatial logic. The significance of the work is that it aims to test notions of experience, that have over the last two decades gained increasing recognition as being fundamental to architecture and calling for a turn away from the dominance of visual mechanisms.