Tuning Our Soundscapes
Architecture has long been a field enamored with the design of physical space, but too often we as designers neglect how sound in a space can effect a user’s experience of the space.
Avery Hall is a world in and of itself, filled with a variety of environments that seek to help students to focus and learn. The collection of spaces that compose Avery Hall vary in many ways, including size, lighting, temperature, and sound. For this project, I have been studying how the presence of sound in a vacant space can effect an occupant’s comfort and perception of safety in that space.
Recent research by University of Michigan marketing professor Aradhna Krishna has shown that when ambient sound is played in a vacant public space, individuals have an increased perception of safety.
“We provide some real-world evidence that appropriately chosen ambient sounds introduced in public spaces perceived to be dangerous can increase human comfort and feelings of safety,” Krishna said. “Bird songs and human vocal sounds give a sense of social presence and seem to be the most effective to use. They even lead to more positive consumer responses and overall higher satisfaction with these places.”
I began by testing how ambient sound may make students more likely to occupy space that would otherwise be vacant. For my initial test environment, I chose the basement of Avery Hall. Avery’s basement is filled with activity during the day when Brownie’s Cafe is open, but is often vacant late at night. My goal was to play a variety of sounds and to see how each would effect students likelihood to occupy Avery’s Basement after hours.
I placed a D-Link DCS-8010LH camera in Avery’s Basement and utilized its motion detection capability to trigger an Amazon Echo Dot to play sound when no motion was detected for a period of 5 minutes.
The final result I found from this project was that most students either enjoyed or were indifferent to the white noise. I interviewed some students after the white noise played for a few minutes to see what their perception was of the sound being introduced to this space and they had either a favorable reaction to the noise or were indifferent to its presence. This reaction was in stark contrast to when students heard classical music playing. Most found the music distracting or out-of-place. While this installation may have worked to begin playing music when the space was vacant, it wasn’t providing me with adequate feedback on how people perceived the noises. For this, I developed a motion activated survey box to gain more user data.
After the Mid-Term, I developed a new installation that had the ability to more accurately test students’ reactions to various sounds. I created survey box with a motion activated light to capture the user’s attention in order to increase the number of surveys I received.
In the diagram shown here, the system works as follows:
- Students hear sound in Avery 505 and enter the room to investigate.
- If they like the sound that they hear, they stay in the room to work.
- As they start to leave, they trigger the motion-activated light inside of the survey box and provide their feedback on the sound.
The survey box worked well in Avery 505. With this method I was able to receive numerous surveys, thus enabling me to more adequately tune the room.
In order to collect the best data, I researched surveys that have been successful in similar environments. I came across an article in the New York Times that discussed the recent success of surveys being utilized at the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta.
The simplicity of the surveys are a large reason why users are so likely to respond to them. In this case study, these screens report data back to airport maintenance workers to alert them when a bathroom needs to be cleaned.
I similarly wanted to create a very similar survey, thus ensuring that I would receive more feedback.
The comment section at the bottom of the page allowed me to receive some interesting feedback throughout my data-collection process.
In conclusion, I believe that this system can help create better soundscapes for students throughout Avery Hall. I would like to further develop a system that utilizes an algorithm that can alter the sound over time, similar to how Spotify creates playlists for users based on what they up-vote and down-vote. An ideal system would work autonomously without need for a human to analyze the data and manually change the sound playing in a room.
