Soundscape

Randall Scovill
METATOOL-fall2019
Published in
2 min readDec 13, 2019

Utilizing sound as a device to alter or generate an environment.

Teaching grasshopper to recognize particular instruments and how those tones may or may not affect the surrounding environment.

The idea that different types of instruments can generate a variety of building forms.

This tool can be understood as an exploratory exercise of processing sound into a physical manifestation. Detection is broken down into understanding the sounds of various instruments each having it’s own characteristics in relationship to a particular building element.

All 10 songs being analyzed

In a hypothetical project, each instrument could produce or form a specific building quality. In one instance, an acoustic guitar, could be used to generate columns of a building with set parameters and intervals relating to the tone, pitch, or progression of the musical piece. While a piano track could develop a floor plate in relationship to a defined set of tone range parameters within grasshopper.

The video shows how specific audio tracks generate building elements. The Metallica song is generating floor plates by analyzing the song and at certain frequencies enlarging in both the X & Y directions while also moving along the Z axis. Rasputin generates columns again by analyzing the frequencies of the song. Humans speaking is analyzed and converted into a series of multiple circulation paths and remains constant. If the crowd noise increases the diameter of the circulation path increases thus creating the need for more volume.

Frequency analyzer component

In conclusion

The transposition of music into Architecture can be achieved via capturing and translating audio frequencies into physical or digital objects. Building components such as floor slabs, columns, fenestration, and facade panels.

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