Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 2007, volume 34, pages 68 ^ 86

DOI:10.1068/b31162

Towards the evaluation, description, and creation of soundscapes in urban open spaces
Mei Zhang, Jian Kang

School of Architecture, University of Sheffield, The Arts Tower, Floor 14, Western Bank, Sheffield S10 2TN, England; e-mail: m.zhang@sheffield.ac.uk, j.kang@sheffield.ac.uk Received 7 January 2005; in revised form 28 February 2006

Abstract. Soundscape is about relationships between the ear, human beings, sound environments, and society. Soundscape research is interdisciplinary. On the basis of a series of case studies in Europe and China and an intensive literature review, the soundscape description, evaluation, and creation in urban open spaces are systematically examined, in terms of four basic elements: sound, space, people, and environment. Factors affecting soundscape evaluation in urban open spaces, including acoustic ^ psychological ^ social characteristics of various sounds, acoustic effects of space boundaries and elements, social ^ demographic characteristics of users, and general physical ^ environmental conditions, are identified, and, consequently, a system for soundscape description is established. Potentials of creating and designing soundscape in urban spaces are then discussed in terms of sound and space.

1 Introduction Community noise, including sounds from road, rail, or air traffic; industry; construction; public work; and the neighbourhood; is often the main cause of environmental distress in terms of the number of complaints received. A series of surveys in the United Kingdom show that there is an increased number of noise-producing events (Grimwood, 1993; Skinner and Grimwood, 2005). Considerable investigations regarding noise propagation and reduction in urban areas have been carried out (Kang, 2006); various effects of community noise exposure have been studied (Fields et al, 1997; Shaw, 1996); a series of noise regulations has been set up (EU, 2002); and many local authorities are actively making noise maps of their cities (Hinton and Bloomfield, 2000). However, recent research has shown that a reduction of sound level does not necessarily lead to better acoustic comfort in urban areas (de Ruiter, 2004). In urban open spaces, for example, when the sound pressure level (SPL) is below a certain value, as high as 65 ^ 70 dBA, people's acoustic comfort evaluation is not related to the sound level, whereas the type of sound sources, the characteristics of users, and other factors play an important role (Ballas, 1993; Dubois, 2000; Gaver, 1993; Maffiolo et al, 1997; Yang and Kang, 2005a). The pioneering research in soundscape was carried out by Schafer in the 1960s (Schafer, 1977). A musician and composer, Schafer's early soundscape work had always been about relationships between the ear, human beings, sound environments, and society. The world forum for acoustic ecology was founded in 1993, with members who share a common concern with the state of the world soundscape as an ecologically balanced entity. Research in soundscape relates to many disciplines (Karlsson, 2000), including acoustics, aesthetics, anthropology, architecture, ecology, ethnology, communication, design, human geography, information, landscapes, law, linguistics, literature, media arts, medicine, musicology, noise-control engineering, philosophy, pedagogics, psychology, political science, religious studies, sociology, technology, and urban planning. Recording and listening to natural and human-made sounds is an important aspect of soundscape study (Westerkamp, 2000). In 1975 Schafer led a
Corresponding author.

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group on a European tour that included a research project that made detailed investigations of the soundscapes of five villages, and recently, under the framework of a European research project, the five villages were revisited to undertake comparative studies (Ja rviluoma, 2000). Soundscapes are of great importance for environmental conservation (Truax, 1999). For example, in 1996 the Japan Environmental Agency carried out a project called `one hundred soundscapes of Japan' (Fujimoto et al, 1998). Soundscapes have also been explored from the sociological viewpoint. The social and cultural environment often shapes common rules of perception of sounds (Corbin, 1998; Htouris, 2001). In the field of literature, the cultural and literary significance of acoustic imagination in intimate relationships between humans and the natural world has been studied (Yuki, 2000). There have also been psycolinguistic and cognitive e, 2004; approaches to soundscape research (Dubois, 2000; Guastavino and Chemine Guastavino et al, 2005). Another important aspect relating to soundscape study is the effect of the acoustic environment on health (Kihlman et al, 2001). Moreover, the detrimental effects of the acoustic environment on human mental health have been investigated (Lercher and Widmann, 2001), although it seems that the relationship between them is still undetermined, and it is difficult to give a simple rule. Other works relating to soundscapes include sound systems, musical instruments, software for animation, and sonic sculptures. To a certain degree, an urban ^ architectural space could be regarded as a `product' and, consequently, the methodology developed in the field of sound quality is of great relevancefor the soundscape reproduction in laboratory conditions, for example (Guastavino and Katz, 2004; Guastavino et al, 2005). The term sound quality was coined in the 1980s. In the very beginning the term expressed an understanding that acoustic emissions had further characteristics than just a level. Corresponding to the concept of product quality, sound quality was defined as the adequacy of a sound in the context of a specific technical goal and/or task (Blauert and Jekosch, 1997). Sound quality has three main aspects: stimulus ^ response compatibility, pleasantness of sounds, and identifiability of sounds or sound sources (Guski, 1997; Zeitler and Hellbru ck, 1999). The pleasantness aspect of sound design is commonly evaluated by means of unidimensional rating scales, and identification aspect is evaluated by means of decision times in recognition tasks and multidimensional scaling techniques (Susini et al, 1999). Considerable work has been carried out in the evaluation of various product sounds such as cars, construction machines, printers, and trains. Psychoacoustic magnitudes, including loudness, sharpness, fluctuation strength, or roughness (Fastl, 1997; Zwicker and Fastl, 1999) have been applied, which allow for an instrumental prediction of attributes of sound perception, although instruments are still far from simulating human sound perception and evaluating all of its facets (Bodden, 1997). Urban open spaces are important components in a city. Recent studies of such spaces have shown that the acoustic environment plays an important role in overall comfort (Raimbault et al, 2003; Zhang and Kang, 2004). Whilst the existing research on the urban sound environment is focused on controlling unwanted sounds and on residential areas, and the existing research on soundscapes is focused on rural areas, consideration of the soundscapes in urban spaces has been rather limited. To study and design a soundscape in urban open spaces, it is important to consider various facets, including physical, social, cultural, psychological, and architectural factors, in an integrated way, with negative and positive sounds taken into account. In this paper, based on a series of our recent studies and an intensive literature review, the three essential facets of soundscapes in urban open spaces, namely soundscape description, evaluation, and creation, are systematically examined in terms of four

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basic elements: sound, space, people, and environment. The central aim of this paper is to define the scope for the soundscape in urban open spaces and to establish a framework. 2 Soundscape study in urban open spaces Our studies of soundscape of urban open spaces included four aspects: questionnaire survey, semantic differential analysis, field measurement, and computer simulation of sound propagation. The questionnaire surveys were carried out in nineteen urban open public spaces, four in Sheffield, three in Beijing, and two in each of the following cities: Alimos, Thessaloniki, Sesto San Giovanni, Cambridge, Kassel, and Fribourg. The case-study sites represented a wide variationin terms of function, including residential squares, cultural and tourism squares, railway station squares, and multifunctional squares; and in terms of soundscape, with traffic noise as a common source, but a number of sites were featured by their unique sound elements, such as water, music, church bells, dancing, and construction. In total over 10 000 interviews were made, around 300 ^ 1000 on each site. An identical questionnaire, translated into different languages in different countries, was used. Interviewees were asked to evaluate the sound environment of the site and of their home, and to classify various sounds as `favourite', `neither favourite nor annoying', or `annoying'. In the squares in Sheffield and Beijing, more detailed questions were included and a semistructured interview was also included which related to a preferred relaxing sound environment. The questionnaire was not introduced as a soundscape survey only, but as an enquiry relating to general environment conditions, including the thermal, lighting, wind, humidity, and visual environment (Kang et al, 2004). Such an integrative consideration of various factors was useful for avoiding any possibility of bias in the acoustic aspect. The interviewees were the users, not passersby, of the squares, and were selected randomly. The semantic differential technique (Osgood et al, 1957) was used to identify the main factors that characterise the soundscape. A number of soundscape walks were organised with a total of about 500 university students in four typical urban open spaces in Sheffield, and an evaluation of the soundscapes was carried out. Further interviews were then performed with 491 subjects from the general public in two selected spaces. Eighteen indices with a seven-point bipolar rating scale were used, to evaluate the main individual sounds as well as the overall soundscape. Both the connotative meanings of urban sounds, such as calming ^ agitating and interesting ^ boring, and the denotative meanings, such as quiet ^ noisy and sharp ^ flat, were included. A one-minute Leq , the equivalent continuous sound level, was measured for each interview, either when the interviewee filled in the questionnaire silently, or immediately after the interview; correspondingly, statistical indices, including Leq , 90 , Leq , 50 , and Leq , 10 , were calculated on the basis of the measurements for all interviews. Reverberation measurements were made in selected sites. The procedure was to burst a balloon or to use a pistol to generate an impulse, and at the same time to record the process of sound decay. Typical sounds were recorded and some psychoacoustic indices were analysed, including loudness, sharpness, and roughness. As well as acoustic measurement, a weather station was used to record various microclimate data. Two computer models were developed for predicting sound fields of urban open spaces (Kang, 2000; 2001; 2002; 2005)one based on the radiosity method, for diffusely reflecting boundaries according to the Lambert cosine law, and the other based on the image source method, for geometrically reflecting boundaries. They were then applied in order to analyse basic characteristics of sound fields in urban spaces, and to analyse the effects of architectural changes and urban design options,

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including the boundary reflection pattern, square geometry, boundary absorption, and building arrangements. 3 Soundscape evaluation The evaluation of the soundscape in open public spaces is rather complicated, involving interactions between various sound sources and between acoustic factors and other factors, for example. This section examines the soundscape evaluation in terms of four basic elements: sound, space, people, and interactions between acoustic and other physical or environmental factors. An initial step of the soundscape evaluation of an urban open space is to consider individual sounds. Based on the field survey in Sheffield, figure 1 shows the classification of a number of typical sounds in urban open spaces (Yang and Kang, 2005b). It can be seen that people showed a very positive attitude towards the natural sounds. More than 75% of the interviewees were favourable to the water sound and to birdsong. For culturally approved sounds, such as church bells, music on the street, and bells and music from a clock, people also showed relatively high levels of preference. For human sounds such as surrounding speech, most people thought they were `neither favourite nor annoying'. The most unpopular sounds were mechanical sounds, such as construction sounds, music from cars, and vehicle sounds. Though the above sound preferences were somewhat expected, it would be interesting to compare the music from three different sourcesas can be seen in figure 1, the rate of `favourite' was 46% for music on a street, 15% for music from stores, and 2% for music from cars, where the differences were statistically significant ( p < 0:01).
Annoying Neither favourite nor annoying Favourite

3.1 Sound

100 80 Percentage 60 40 20 0

Figure 1. Classification of typical sounds in urban open spaces, on the basis of the survey in Sheffield.

Wat er g of bird s Chu rch bells Mus ic on Bells stree or m t usic from cloc k Inse ct so Surr unds ound ing spee Mus ch ic fr om s tore Pede s stria n cr ossin Chil g d ren 's sh outi n g Mus ic fr om cars Buse s Con stru ction Vehi cle p arki ng Pass enge r ca rs Twit terin

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Similarly, a list of sounds in surroundings was given on the basis of a survey in Japan (Tamura, 1998). On the top of the list was the twittering of birds, murmurs of water, insects and frogs, waves, and wind chimes 45 ^ 75% of the subjects found these sounds favourable and 25 ^ 65% found them neither favourable nor annoying. The bottom five sounds were motorbikes, idling engines, construction, advertising cars, and karaoke restaurants35 ^ 55% of the subjects found these sounds annoying and 45 ^ 65% found them neither favourable nor annoying. Schafer (1977) defined the sounds as keynotes, foreground sounds, and soundmarks. Keynotes are in analogy to music, in which a keynote identifies the fundamental tonality of a composition, around which the music modulates. Foreground sounds, also termed `sound signals', are intended to attract attention. Sounds that are particularly regarded by a community and its visitors are called `soundmarks', in analogy to landmarks. Natural examples of the latter include geysers, waterfalls, and wind traps, and cultural examples include distinctive bells and the sounds of traditional activities (Smith, 2000). Although traffic has become a common feature of many cities, special soundmarks still exist. For example, a soundscape survey with a number of foreign residents in Fukuoka showed that there were considerable differences between the sounds they heard in Japan and in their home countries (Iwamiya and Yanagihara, 1998). In a similar way it is also useful to identify two kinds of sound relating to different ways of processing in listening: a `descriptive listening' which aims at the identification of acoustic sources or events and a `holistic hearing' which processes the soundscape as a whole without semantic processing, or, in other words, `ambient noises of the city' or `background noise', in which no specific event can be isolated (Guastavino and e, 2004; Guastavino et al, 2005; Maffiolo et al, 1998; Raimbault et al, 2003). Chemine It is noted that, in addition to the type of sound, the loudness may also influence the categorisation. A study of the relation between loudness and pleasantness shows that the pleasantness of stimuli at intermediate loudness levels is not influenced by its loudness, but for sound at relatively high loudness levels there is a good correlation between the two (Zeitler and Hellbru ck, 1999; Zwicker and Fastl, 1999). The methodology in the field of product sound quality is closely related to the soundscape evaluation of urban open spaces. However, though the basic psychoacoustic magnitudes can be used to evaluate individual sounds (Keiper, 1997), the complexity of the sound components in urban open spaces should be considered. For example, it has been demonstrated that, for sounds with multiple tonal components, the perceptual process is different from that for a single tonal component because the attention of the subjects is not automatically focused (Bodden and Heinrichs, 2001). Moreover, the meaning of a sound may considerably influence the evaluation. In order to study this effect, a procedure has been proposed to remove the meaning of a sound, but to retain the other characteristics, such as loudness (Fastl, 2001). Furthermore, not only perceptual factors, but also cognitive factors, such as memory, play an important role in global loudness judgments. It has been demonstrated that the overall loudness is higher than the average of instantaneous loudness judgments (Hellbru ck et al, 2001). It is important to identify key factors in sound evaluation. For product sound quality, through the use of semantic analysis it was suggested that three main factors were powerful, metallic, and pleasant (Kuwano and Namba, 2001). Additional factors could be used for any special sound, such as `dieselness' for diesel cars (Patsouras et al, 2001). For general environmental sounds, it was demonstrated that evaluation, timbre, power, and temporal change were four essential factors (Zeitler and Hellbru ck, 2001). For residential areas, a study in Sweden showed that the soundscape was characterised in four dimensions, namely adverse, reposing, affective, and expressionless (Berglund et al, 2001).

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3.2 Space

In addition to evaluating sounds, the acoustic effects of an urban open space should be taken into account. It has been demonstrated that, with a constant SPL, noise annoyance is greater with a longer reverberation (Kang, 1988). On the other hand, a suitable reverberation time, say 1 ^ 2 s, can make `street music' more enjoyable. Depending on the usage of an urban open space, an appropriate reverberation might be determined, although the requirement is much less critical than that in room acoustics, and the concept of reverberation in outdoor spaces may not be the same as that for enclosed spaces. In addition to reverberation, sound distribution and reflection patterns as discussed in section 5.2, are also important for soundscape evaluation. In urban open spaces there are often different sound zones, and in each zone there might be a dominant sound. This is especially important for soundscape evaluation when this sound is related to the users' activities, such as group dancing. Also, sounds that are far away, close-up, or moving in juxtaposition to the users may provide different information and thus affect the evaluation. In sound-quality research it has been shown that psychoacoustic qualities are different between stable and passing sounds (Genuit, 2001). Social and demographic factors of the users may play an important role in the soundscape evaluation (Kang et al, 2003). The survey in Europe showed that there was no significant difference amongst different age groups in terms of the subjective evaluation of a sound level (1, very quiet; 2, quiet; 3, neither quiet nor noisy; 4, noisy; and 5, very noisy), whereas in terms of acoustic comfort (1, very comfortable; 2, comfortable; 3, neither comfortable nor uncomfortable; 4, uncomfortable; and 5, very uncomfortable), the differences were significantteenagers tended to be the most unsatisfied group, and older people (> 55 years) were the most satisfied group ( p < 0:05). It was also found that, with the increase of age, people were more favourable to, or tolerant towards, sounds relating to nature, culture, or human activities. As an example, figure 2 shows the variation of sound preference amongst age groups for birdsongs, based on the survey in Sheffield. By contrast, young people were more favourable to, or tolerant towards, music and mechanical sounds, as also shown in figure 2, with music from stores used as an example. No significant difference was found between males and females, in terms of the sound-level evaluation, acoustic comfort, or sound preferences. In addition some other special characteristics of the users should be considered. For example, people with stereos may have different sound evaluation from others (Bull, 2000). A comparison between various countries indicated that culture differences could lead to rather different acoustic comfort evaluation and sound preferences (Yang and Kang, 2003). For example, for water sounds the preferences in Sheffield and Sesto San Giovanni were significantly different ( p < 0:01) in the former over 75 ^ 84% of the interviewees rated water sounds as `favourite', whereas in the latter, this value was less than 28%. Similarly, a cross-cultural comparison of community responses to road-traffic noise in Japan and Sweden suggested that nonacoustic factors, including the different customs of the people living in different countries and in different types of housing were important for annoyance evaluation (Sato et al, 1998). Another cross-cultural study on the factors of sound quality of environmental noise, using semantic differential analysis in Japan, Germany, USA, and China, demonstrated notable differences between the four countries (Kuwano et al, 1999). The idea and experience of an `environment' is a historically conditioned refraction of cultural life. As Schwartz (1995) argued, nothing quite so dramatic has happened
3.3 People

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Favourite, music Neither favourite nor annoying, music Annoying music 100

Favourite, birds Neither favourite nor annoying, birds Annoying, birds

80

60 Percemtage

40

20

0 10 17

18 24

25 34

35 44 45 54 Age groups (years)

55 64

65

Figure 2. Variation of sound preference amongst age groups for birdsong and music from stores.

with regard to noise. When there was no traffic noise, the soundscape in cities was filled with church bells, from every direction, day and night. The astonishing success of the 19th and early 20th century campaign to limit the ringing of church bells is most relevant here, for church bells had grown neither louder nor more numerous since, say, the 16th century (Girdner, 1897). However, church bells were silenced because they belonged to a constellation of sounds whose significance was in the process of being reconfigured. The last 150 years have been witness to a thorough redefinition of the nature of sound and the ambit of noise. The assessment of the sound quality of an urban area depends on how long people have been living there, how they define the area in terms of dependency on the infrastructure, and how much they have been involved in the social life in the area (Schulte-Fortkamp and Nitsch, 1999). This is also true for urban open spaces. Expectation is another issue in soundscape evaluation. In fact noise regulations are based on an assumption that people expect a different noise environment depending on different qualities of their living environment. Such expectations depend on many social and economic factors and are very difficult to predict, especially for a universal model (Botteldooren et al, 2001). Sound experience, such as exposure to noise at the place of work and sound exposure over time, is also important (Bertoni et al, 1993), although a study seems to suggest that recent experience of negative events is not related to reaction (Job et al, 1999).

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3.4 Environment

Another significant aspect of the soundscape evaluation in urban open spaces is the interaction between acoustic and other physical ^ environmental conditions (Mudri and Lenard, 2000). For example, if an urban open space is very hot or very cold, the acoustic comfort could become less critical and less important in the overall comfort evaluation. On the basis of the results of the European sites, principal-component analysis was made to examine the relationship between the overall physical comfort evaluation of an urban open space and the subjective evaluation of various physical ^ environmental indices, including temperature, sunshine, brightness, wind, view, humidity, and sound level. Three factors were determined. Factor 1 (22.8%), including temperature, sunshine, brightness, and wind, is the most important factor. Factor 2 (17.5%) is associated with visual and aural senses, showing that the acoustic environment is one of the main factors influencing the overall comfort in an urban open public space. Factor 3 (14.8%) is principally related to humidity, and includes humidity and wind. The above factors only cover 55% of the total variance, suggesting that other aspects, such a social ^ cultural factors, may also influence the evaluation. Considerable research has been carried out on aural ^ visual interactions. Research in gardens showed that a positive evaluation of the landscape reduces annoyance of the soundscapes, whereas a negative evaluation of the landscape increases annoyance (Maffiolo et al, 1999). For most environmental sounds, including birdsong, cicadas song, music, water flow, wind ring, frogs, barks, vehicles, and waves, it was demonstrated experimentally that good or moderate sights can enhance people's sense of favourability (Tsai and Lai, 2001). It was also showed that, the more urban visual settings were, the more contaminated the auditory judgment was (Carles et al, 1992; Viollon et al, 2002). This auditory dependence with the visual information was multisided: all the human sounds, involving either footsteps or voices, were not influenced, whereas all the nonhuman sounds, involving no human presence, were significantly influenced. The aural ^ visual interaction was also studied in the field of product sound quality. For noise in cars, it was demonstrated that the effect of a visual image reduced the negative impression of sound quality and the amount was sometimes equivalent to a 10 dB reduction in SPL. Similarly, a study on the sound-quality evaluation of construction machines showed that the results obtained by presenting sound only were more unpleasant, more powerful, and sharper than those obtained by presenting sound with scenery (Hatano et al, 2001). The above results seem to suggest that the evaluation of soundscape in urban open spaces should not be conducted by audio recording and then laboratory listening tests. One alternative could be to evaluate the soundscape with simultaneously recorded video, but this still ignores some other factors, such as humidity and temperature, which could have similar effects to the visual factors. A more appropriate method would be field survey. 4 Soundscape description To investigate the existing acoustic environment in an urban open space or to design a new soundscape, it is vital to use an appropriate system or framework to describe the soundscape. On the basis of the soundscape evaluation as analysed in section 3, such a system or framework is proposed, as shown in figure 3. The description includes four facets, namely characteristics of each sound, acoustic effects of the space, the social ^ demographic aspects of the users, and other aspects of the physical and environmental conditions.

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Sound pressure level Spectrum

Variation (hour, day, season) Duration

Temporal conditions Source Location

Impulsive characteristics

Source movement

Psychological and social characteristics

Meaning Natural or artificial sound

Reverberation Relation to activities Reflection pattern and/or echogram Space General background sound Descriptive or holistic Sounds around the space Soundmark

Social ^ demographic ^ cultural characteristics of the users People Acoustic condition at users' home and work, experience, etc

Temperature, humidity, lighting, etc Environment Visual, landscape, and architectural characteristics

Figure 3. A system for the soundscape description in urban open spaces.

The system also corresponds to the results of semantic differential analysis. On the basis of the nineteen case-study sites, varimax rotated principal-component analysis was employed to extract the orthogonal factor underlying the eighteen adjective indices. With a criterion factor of eigenvalue > 1, four factors were determined for characterising soundscapes in urban open spaces, including relaxation, communication, spatiality, and dynamics (Kang and Zhang, 2002; Zhang and Kang, 2004). Similarly, Raimbault et al (2003) also suggested that three categories of analysis should be considered for such spaces: activities such as human presence or transport; spatial attributes, such as location; and time history, including moments or periods.

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For each sound, the SPL, spectrum, temporal conditions, source location, source movement, and the psychological and social characteristics should be considered. In terms of sound level, both the steady-state SPL and the statistical SPL should be taken into account. In terms of frequency, if tonal components were noted, it would be useful to consider a narrowband spectrum. The temporal effect may be related to the dynamic characteristics of hearing. It was demonstrated that when the temporal pattern of a sound is systematically varied, the sound which has the high-level portion at the beginning is perceived as being louder, which might be caused by the overshoot at the onset of the sound (Kuwano and Namba, 2001). The description should include the rate and pattern of the sound occurrence; sound sequences; and passages of time such as acoustic actions of starting and stopping, adding and subtracting, and expanding and contracting. The perception of a sound also varies according to its duration. The shorter the duration is, the sharper the sound is judged (Kuwano and Namba, 2001). Impulsive characteristics, including peak level as well as rise and fall time, should also be taken into account. Considerable research has been carried out on the determination of the loudness of impulse sounds (Meunier et al, 2001; Scharf, 1978). The location and movement of sound sources are of particular importance for the soundscape in urban open spaces. People have a natural ability to isolate sounds in relation to their approximate positions: be those sounds behind, to the side, above, below, or in front of the head (Wenzel, 1992). The auditory system is also capable of detecting, from a variety of acoustic events, detailed information about the distance of the sound source, its velocity, the direction of its movement, and even its size and weight. Another aspect of a sound in an urban open space is its psychological and social characteristics. Sound figures can be natural in occurrence or can be selected by the will of the listener. On the basis of a cognitive approach of urban soundscape, it was suggested to identify the meaningful categories of sounds and their properties at linguistic and psychological levels before describing them in physical dimensions and experimentally manipulating them in psychological paradigms (Dubois, 2000). In describing the psychological and social characteristics of a sound, it is necessary to distinguish natural and human-made sounds, to indicate the relationship of a sound to the activities in the urban open space, and to identify whether a sound is related to the soundmark of the urban open space or the city. Consideration should also be given regarding descriptive or holistic listening. The acoustic effects from an urban open space should be considered. Relevant factors include the shape of the space, boundary materials, street and square furniture, and landscape elements. In addition to reverberation, reflection patterns and/or echograms, and possible acoustic defects such as echoes and focus effects, should be checked for. It is also important to describe the general background sound and any sound sources around an urban open space. It has been demonstrated that the surrounding acoustic environment may affect a subjective evaluation of an urban open space (Yang and Kang, 2001). The social ^ demographic aspects of the users of an urban open space are vital, and thus relevant information should be described. This includes their gender, age, place of livingthat is, whether a local resident or from another cityand their cultural and educational background. The acoustic experience of the users is also important, as is the acoustic environment at their home and working places. In addition to the description of soundscape, it is essential to describe other aspects of physical and environmental conditions, including temperature, humidity, wind, sun, luminosity, and glare. The visual environment, as well as the landscape and architectural features of an urban open space, should also be considered.

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5 Soundscape creation In this section issues relating to the soundscape creation and design in urban open spaces are discussed, following the framework in figure 3, with a focus on two designable aspects, sound and space. A brief design diagram is shown in figure 4. If the overall sound level is higher than a certain value, say 65 ^ 70 dBA, people will feel annoyed, whatever the type of sound is. In this case it is important to reduce sound levels. Conversely, if the overall sound level is not high, the design of various sounds is more important.
Soundscape description

SPL is greater than approximately 65 ^ 70 dBA

SPL is less than approximately 65 ^ 70 dBA Reduce SPL with ^ square form ^ boundaries ^ square `furniture'

Design sounds and soundmarks ^ create active sounds ^ design passive sounds Design space with boundaries and elements ^ reverberation ^ SPL distribution ^ reflection pattern

Social aspects

Environmental aspects

Figure 4. Soundscape design process in urban open spaces. SPL denotes sound pressure level. 5.1 Sound

In the soundscape creation and design of an urban open space, it would be useful to consider soundmarks, reflecting traditional and cultural characteristics. Sound sources in an urban open space can be divided into two types, namely active sounds and passive sounds. Active sounds relate to sounds from the activities in the space, such as group dancing, and passive sounds relate to the sounds from the landscape elements, such as fountains. As a typical active sound, live music is always very popular. People are not only interested in the music itself, but are also attracted by the activities of the players. In this case the type of music (for example, classical music or pop music) is not a very important issue. However, when music is played through loudspeakers, the type of music as well as the sound level needs to be considered carefully. On the basis of the

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field study in one of the case-study sites in Sheffield, Barkers Pool, it has been shown that most people do not like loud music played from loudspeakers, whatever the music type is (Kang et al, 2004). An urban open space can be designed to encourage activities generating active sounds. From field surveys it was shown that some patterns of design are more suitable for certain activities (Kang and Yang, 2002). To introduce passive sounds, many kinds of design feature with favourable sounds can be applied, both for functional and aesthetic purposes. The sounds of water are attractive to most people, but particular attention must be paid to the water flow rate. The flow rate of a water feature should not be constant. Keeping it at the same sound level range may make people lose interest such that the effect on their psychological adaptation would diminish with time. Active and passive sounds can be used to mask the noises. In this case, although the overall sound level may not be decreased or may even be increased, people may feel that the acoustic environment is more comfortable. Spectrum analysis is important, both for individual sounds and for the overall acoustic environment. For example, our survey on different water features suggests that high-frequency components generally come from the water splash itself, whereas, when a large flow of water is raised to a very high level and then dropped to a water body or hard surface, notable low frequency components can be generated. Another related phenomenon in terms of introducing natural sounds is that animal and insect vocalisations tended to occupy small bands of frequencies, leaving `spectral niches' into which the vocalisations of other animals, birds, or insects can fit. As urban areas spread, the accompanying noise might block or mask spectral niches and, if mating calls go unheard, a species might die out (Krause, 1993). The creation and design of soundscape in an urban open space should be considered as a dynamic process. The soundscape variation with seasons, days, and different times of typical days should be taken into account, as should differences in soundscape between the designed space and the surrounding acoustic environment. It is useful to relate the design with a sound excursion of the urban open space or the city, using a series of typical listening points (Dietze, 2000; Westerkamp, 2000). Effects of architectural changes and urban-design options on the sound field of urban open spaces have been studied using computer models (Kang, 2005; Kang and Zhang, 2003; Meng and Kang, 2004). This is important for controlling sound fields in urban open spacesfor example, reducing sound levels from unwanted sound sources. It has been shown that, in an urban square with diffusely reflecting boundaries, the reverberation is generally much shorter and the sound attenuation with source ^ receiver distance is greater than in those squares with geometrically reflecting boundaries. Even for fac ades and ground for which only about 20% of the energy incident upon the boundaries is diffusely reflected, the sound field in an urban square is close to that resulting from purely diffusely reflecting boundaries. This means that the effect of adding even a small amount of diffusion to an urban square, in which the reflections are mainly specular, can be very beneficial from the viewpoint of urban-noise reduction. In a similar way to diffuse boundaries, street or square furniture such as lampposts, fences, barriers, benches, telephone boxes, and bus shelters can also be effective in reducing noise. Figures 5 to 7 illustrate the SPL distribution simulated using the radiosity model in a number of hypothetical urban squares with diffusely reflecting boundaries, where a point source is positioned at x square length=10, y square width=10, z 1:5 m, and the receiver plane is at 1.2 m. It is shown that: (1) if the square side is doubled,
5.2 Space

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the SPL is typically 6 ^ 9 dB lower in the far field; figures 5(a) ^ (c) compare the SPL distribution in three squares, 25 m 25 m, 50 m 50 m and 100 m 100 m, in which the square height is 20 m and the boundary absorption coefficient is 0.1.

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d) Figure 5. Sound distribution in urban squares with different sizes and shapes: (a) 25 m 25 m; (b) 50 m 50 m; (c) 100 m 100 m; (d) 25 m 100 m. The square height is 20 m and the boundary absorption coefficient is 0.1. Each shade represents 3 dB.

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(a)

(b)

Figure 6. Sound distribution in urban squares with different heights: (a) 6 m; (b) 50 m. The square size is 50 m 50 m and the boundary absorption coefficient is 0.1. Each shade represents 3 dB.

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

Figure 7. Sound distribution in urban squares with different boundary absorption coefficients: (a) a 0:3; (b) a 0:5; (c) a 0:7; (d) a 0:9. The square size is 50 m 50 m and the square height is 20 m. Each shade represents 3 dB.

(2) For a given square area, with a greater aspect ratio the SPL attenuation is considerably greater in the far field, as can be seen by comparing figures 5(b) and 5(d), namely a 50 m 50 m square and a 25 m 100 m `square'. (3) The SPL increases with increasing square height. For example, between square heights 6 m and 50 m, the SPL difference is typically 8 dB, as can be seen in figure 6, in which the square size is 50 m 50 m and the boundary absorption coefficient is 0.1; and (4) with the increase of boundary absorption coefficients, the SPL reduces proportionally, as can be seen in figure 7, in which the square size is 50 m 50 m and the square height is 20 m. The reduction is typically 12 dB when the absorption coefficient is increased from 0.1 to 0.9.

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Vegetation on building fac ades and the ground can increase boundary diffusion of incident sound and can also increase boundary absorption, thus reducing noise further. Similarly, the effect of trees in urban open spaces will be to introduce additional absorption and scattering. Owing to multiple reflections, vegetation is especially effective in urban context. Landscape elements can also be used to create certain sound fields. Experimental research into woods shows that the trunks could scatter sound with different time delays, such that the conditions for the sensations of spaciousness and envelopment are created (Ruspa, 2001). Given the importance of aural and visual interactions, an integrative consideration of landscape and soundscape elements is vital. For example, with the same traffic, the soundscape could differ significantly with the highway view, vegetation view, and noise barrier view (Nathanail and Guyot, 2001). A more direct connection between landscape and soundscape is sonic sculptures (Harvey, 2000). If there are several acoustic zones in an urban open space, a suitable aural space or the source ^ listener distance for each zone should be designed. It is interesting to note that the scale of an aural space changes with time and place. Preindustrial soundscapes and sounds emanating from a listener's own community may be heard at a considerable distance, thereby reinforcing a sense of space and position and maintaining a relationship with home (Wrightson, 2000). Nowadays it is common that one's aural space is reduced to less than that of human proportions (Truax, 1984). 6 Conclusions On the basis of a series of recent studies and an intensive literature review, the soundscape description, evaluation, and creation in urban open spaces have been systematically discussed. Factors affecting soundscape evaluation in urban open spaces were identified and, consequently, a system for soundscape description has been established. It has been shown that soundscape in urban open spaces is not just a noise-control issue, and also not just an acoustic issue. A number of aspects need to be considered, including acoustic ^ psychological ^ social characteristics of various sounds, acoustic effects of space boundaries and elements, social ^ demographic characteristics of users, and general physical and environmental conditions. Potentials of creating and designing soundscape in urban open spaces have also been demonstrated, in terms of sound and space. To provide an overall evaluation of a soundscape, it would be important to integrate various factors discussed above. A possible way is to use the artificial neural networks, which have been proved to be successful through a pilot study (Yu and Kang, 2005), but further work is still needed.
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