Sonic Gathering Place

Background: The Sonic Gathering Place (SGP), funded by Jordan Lacey’s DECRA (DE190100630) research titled Translating ambiance: restorative sound design for urban soundscapes, advances the fields of urban soundscape design (Gaustavino, Kang, Cobussen) and biophilic design (Kellert, Beatley, Brown). Biophilic design proposes that humans have a natural affinity to life, and that by introducing nature into the city human wellbeing can be improved. Urban soundscape design turns the attention of urban planners towards the sounds of the city and how they can be designed to improve wellbeing. Background: The Sonic Gathering Place (SGP), funded by Jordan Lacey’s DECRA (DE190100630) research titled Translating ambiance: restorative sound design for urban soundscapes, advances the fields of urban soundscape design (Gaustavino, Kang, Cobussen) and biophilic design (Kellert, Beatley, Brown). Biophilic design proposes that humans have a natural affinity to life, and that by introducing nature into the city human wellbeing can be improved. Urban soundscape design turns the attention of urban planners towards the sounds of the city and how they can be designed to improve wellbeing. Significance: Via a rigorous review process, the work has been catalogued and accessioned into the RMIT Art Collection EMu database along with the plan's, images and files. It has attracted media attention including Architecture & Design and Australian Leisure Management industry journals and was the subject of Lacey’s Conversation article (18,556 readers). The SGP is a permanent installation, launched internationally as part of the ‘more-than-sound’ symposium and featured in Lacey’s article published for the Poland-based Loci Communes journal. To test its public impact Lacey collaborated with Lex Brown (Griffith) to develop an online questionnaire allowing the public to provide feedback. A paper is in preparation for the Landscape Research journal.