The soundscape approach considers sound as a resource from a user perspective in the planning of public spaces. While this approach is garnering increased research attention, practitioners rarely integrate sound into their practice beyond noise mitigation. Yet, sound design of public spaces has long been a major focus of sound installation artists, who offer creative site-specific interventions to (re)design public spaces. In this study, we present the systematic evaluation and comparison of four temporary sound installations deployed over two consecutive summers in the same urban public space. The sound installations featured compositions by the artist collective Audiotopie using different combinations of ambient music, nature, and vocal sounds. To measure the effects of the sound installations on users’ experience, we deployed 825 questionnaires including soundscape ratings and sound source listings. The results show that all four sound installations improved the public space’s soundscape, with commonalities (increased and , decreased perceived loudness) and specificities (increased sense of for one installation, increased and reduced ratings for for another) related to compositional and contextual factors, such as the intended design goals, users’ location, or the presence of construction noise. As well, three of the four installations distracted participants from other non-dominant sound sources such as construction works, air conditioners, but also birds and human voices. Overall, the results confirm that sound installations can have a common enhancing effect on the experience of public space users, in addition to specific, tailored effects to reinforce the intended design goals in public spaces.

中文翻译：

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塑造城市声景：城市公共空间中四种音响装置的现场比较


声景方法从用户的角度将声音视为公共空间规划中的一种资源。虽然这种方法正在引起越来越多的研究关注，但从业者很少将声音融入到除噪音缓解之外的实践中。然而，公共空间的声音设计长期以来一直是声音装置艺术家的主要关注点，他们提供创造性的特定地点干预措施来（重新）设计公共空间。在这项研究中，我们对连续两个夏天在同一城市公共空间部署的四个临时音响装置进行了系统评估和比较。这些声音装置的特色是艺术家团体 Audiotopie 使用环境音乐、自然和声音的不同组合创作的作品。为了衡量声音装置对用户体验的影响，我们部署了 825 份调查问卷，包括音景评级和声源列表。结果表明，所有四种声音装置都改善了公共空间的声景，其共性（增加 和 ，感知响度降低）和特殊性（一种装置的感觉增加，另一种装置的评级增加和降低）与构图和背景因素相关，例如例如预期的设计目标、​​用户的位置或施工噪音的存在。此外，四个装置中的三个分散了参与者对其他非主要声源的注意力，例如建筑工程、空调、鸟类和人声。总体而言，结果证实，声音装置除了可以增强公共空间的预期设计目标之外，还可以对公共空间用户的体验产生共同的增强效果。