Soundscape design for historical buildings as a sonic place-making process

Abstract

Through the design of soundscape installations for three historical museum buildings, we explore how sonic placemaking may be used to reveal intangible cultural heritage. We build on Harrison and Dourish’s distinction between space and place, and Jordan Lacey’s definition of sonic placemaking to understand sound-scape design as a process of creating places that support sensory connection be-tween the museum guest and museum space, hereby enabling new experiences. We apply design space thinking as the approach to systematize and explore how distinct design choices affect the intended sonic placemaking. Through an inter-disciplinary approach that spans interaction design and sound studies, we investigate how the design space is explored through a series of design activities addressing sonic placemaking. Hereby, we identify three design aspects unique to sonic placemaking: Types of Sound, Listening Attention and Spatiality of Listening.