Sound and architecture

Of all of our sensory systems, hearing is simply the best means for connecting and recognizing dynamic

events. When deaf, we have more difficulty experiencing those events because vision has limitations.

Vision requires us to first voluntarily focus on the target; vision is easily obscured by intervening

objects; vision requires a light source; and vision is not particularly good for sensing fast movements or

rapid change. In contrast, sound flows through space, around obstacles and into crevices. Our hearing is

always on, even when we sleep – mammals do not have earlids to selectively block sonic broadcasts.

From an evolutionary perspective, hearing made a critical important contribution to survival.

Communicating information and enjoying entertainment are not necessarily the most relevant aspects of

hearing.

 Aural Architecture

Listeners and Sounds Exist in a Space

Everyone must be somewhere, and every location has acoustic attributes that both change the properties

of sound and influence the region in which sonic broadcasts are receivable. Pure sound does not exist

apart from spatial acoustics because every event and every listener must be located in some

environment. Aural architecture then becomes those acoustic attributes of the environment that influence

our social and emotional experience of sonic broadcasts. Imagine a friend clapping his hands, and

consider how the spatial acoustics changes that experience in a marble bathroom, a well-upholstered

plush living room, a majestic 17th century cathedral, a beach on a quiet Sunday morning, a street of a

metropolitan city at rush hour, an isolated underground cave, or a dense forest at dusk. Each of these

spaces has an aural architecture, and we can sense that architecture in addition to the sound of clapping

hands. An aural architect then becomes someone who chooses the attributes of a space based on the

needs of the inhabitants.