GREG BAKER

ARCHITECTURE RESEARCH THESIS SEMINAR - ABSTRACT, ARTICLE, SOURCES & STUDIO PROPOSAL
TRANSONDENT ARCHITECTURE SIGNAL-ORIENTED ACOUSTIC REFORM ABSTRACT Urban noise control began with New York Citys Bennett Act in 1907, prompting an era that brought solutions such as Anti-Noise Police and special zoning to protect hospitals from excessive noise disturbance. Compared to the attempts of New York Citys Noise Abatement Commission to solve complex public noise problems, mass-production of acoustic tiles for use in the private sector was logistically simple, but did not solve the many negative externalities of urban sound excess. The legacy of acoustic reform in America during the Thirties has left us with limited private solutions to a complex public problem. Masking, for example, is a noise byproduct of roads and cities that disturbs communication patterns (such as dawn chorus). Humans suffer from making as well, and also from the urban canyon effect that causes excess echoing because of the flat vertical surfaces of skyscrapers lining city streets. These issues require that the dominant receiver-oriented paradigm of acoustic tiles and noise barriers be challenged. Signal-oriented planning and transondent architecture diffuse the soundscapes of densely populated areas and traffic corridors, keeping the urban din at nominal levels for background noise while mitigating any negative effects of masking.

Fig. 1 The cover of the official guidelines for noise reform shows a juxtaposition of public noise issues, such as trains, and private issues such as loud bells or music. U.S. Department of H.U.D. Noise Assessment Guidelines. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1983.

BAKER 2 Noise in cities functions as a by-product of architecture and urbanism within a larger framework of sound as (spatial) territory, both public and private. Ideal communication levels are disturbed by noises with a frequency bandwidth that overlaps the peak frequency of the desired signal. Known as masking, this phenomenon is what causes people at the Standard Hotel Biergarten to shout over the dangerously high level of reverberation in the High Line. A survey conducted by the New York Times, revealing an estimated one-third of bars, restaurants, shops and gyms to have dangerous sound levels, found the Biergarten to reach a peak sound pressure level (SPL) of 96 decibels. Exposure to SPL over 88 decibels for three and a half hours demands hearing protection by government standards, and workers log up to ten-hour shifts (Buckley). The territorialization of sound, in this example, shows the friction between the public High Line and a privately owned business results in the waitstaff bearing the brunt of a blameless problem. SOUND VS. NOISE According to Paige Warren, bird calls increase in frequency and/or amplitude to compensate for noise disturbance. Animals suffer from masking, a sonic externality of roads and cities that disturbs communication patterns, such as avian dawn chorus. The air at dawn propagates sound more easily than air heated by the sun, but morning rush hour traffic hinders the travel of bird calls even in the rarefied morning air. Humans suffer from making as well, and also from the urban canyon effect that causes excess echoing, known as reverberation, due to the flat vertical surfaces of skyscrapers lining densely populated urban streets. These new studies, however, were not understood at the time people become aware of the deleterious effects of noise pollution in industrialized cities.

Fig. 2 Two alterations of animal signals can mitigate the effects of masking noise: changes in amplitude and changes in frequency. Warren, Paige, et al. Urban Bioacoustics: Its Not Just Noise. Animal Behaviour 71 (2006): 491-502. p492

BAKER 3 NOISE CONTROL Noise abatement began in the United States with New York Citys Bennett Act in 1907, prompting solutions such as Anti-Noise Police and special zoning clauses to protect hospitals from excessive disturbance. These zones spread from hospitals to schools and from New York City to national scale. The New York City Noise Abatement Commission conducted public opinion surveys that were charted along with noise level (SPL) and radial distance for over thirty different common urban sound sources, from airplanes to milkmen (Thompson 158). Traffic lights replaced traffic police blowing whistles, and subway turnstiles were replaced with quieter models, but there were not many public solutions that could be executed by the Commission. Compared to the citys efforts in the intractable public sphere, mass-production of acoustic tiles for the private sector was logistically simple. Such tiles became popular during the Thirties under Taylorist acoustic reform, proliferating private solutions to a public problem. ANTI-SPACE Also at that time, Wallace Sabine and others were perfecting reverberation equations that could be followed by concert hall acousticians in the design of performance spaces when the Taylorist efficiency craze led to their adoption in many building types from religious and civic auditoriums to office towers. Modern acoustics has produced an anti-space in the words of Emily Thompson, devoid of reverberation and the psychoacoustic sense that gives us qualitative information about the kinds of spaces we inhabit (Thompson, 227). The spread of anti-space marks the origin of interior sound control.

Fig. 3 The New York City Noise Abatement Commission lasted from 1929-1932, and focused on reforming the various sources of urban noise. The replacement of whitle-blowing police officers with silent electric traffic signals is one example. Brown, Edward et al. City Noise. New York: Department of Health, 1930.

BAKER 4 SOUND CONTROL The modern institution of office work demanded a new type of body, one that could withstand prolonged sitting while focusing on a repetitive task. Acoustic tiles eliminated reverberation in the name of clear communication, thought to be synonymous with efficient communication. Designed to fill the anti-space, Muzak acted as a Foucauldian disciplining mechanism, creating the docile workforce of wartime service sector growth. The ability to keep workers heartrates from dropping by providing a backdrop of sound that cycled through specific combinations of rhythm and instrumentation was a particular form of individuation based on camouflage. Speakers would be hidden amongst large plants, thereby making the music seem to come out of nowhere and lending it the name potted palm music. With the disappearance of any visible means of sound production, Muzak exceeded the gramophones capacity to make sound autonomous. Sound camouflage is with us still today, programmed by audio architects, through atmospherics: when we recognize that we are in a particular retail environment by the type of music that is playing, as just one example of how background music has the power to make us blend in, like human chameleons, to the realm of social cues and observation. Muzak delivered programming to the workplace, where it soothed the minds of employees, enhancing their productivity while eliminating the distractions caused by commercials, scripted programs, and other verbal content, as well as to New York City apartment buildings, where it was allowed as a service that enhanced the quality of life (AUDC, 110). One knows one is home and either working or getting ready to do so when NPR and the coffee maker are on simultaneously; or some can guess the brand of car early in the commercial by the sound of the engine and the music.

Fig. 4 Its playlists were designed to regulate workers by providing a backdrop of sound that cycled through specific combinations of rhythm and instrumentation AUDC, Sumrell & Varnelis. The Stimulus Progression: Muzak and the Culture of Horizontality. Verb: Conditioning. Barcelona: ACTAR, 2006.

BAKER 5 SOUND QUALITY Tolerance to sound depends on demographics of a particular site, particularly the age, income, occupation, and site preferences of the subjects. The papers of Jian Kang, both on soundscapes with Mei Zhang and artificial neural networks with Lei Yu, our ability to predict peoples acoustic preferences is stronger when looking at these demographic factors rather than just looking at SPL. Although their research looks primarily at urban open spaces, the findings suggest that this may be true for a variety of spatial conditions. A soundscape, similar to a landscape, suggests that some elements are perceived as background, others as middle ground, and intermittent foreground sounds pass by with relatively faster movement. By understanding perceptual characteristics (such as loud, sharp, rough, and fluctuating) in combination with psychosomatic dichotomies such as calming-agitating, interesting-boring, quiet-noisy, and sharp-flat, the conclusion can be drawn that a reduction of sound level does not necessarily lead to better acoustic comfort in urban areas because the type of sound sources and characteristics of the users must be simultaneously considered (Zhang). When programming artificial neurons to predict acoustic comfort, the importance of SPL is limited in comparison to factors of the sound quality (brightness) and reason for coming to the site or site preference (Yu).

Fig. 5

Artificial intelligence prediction maps of acoustic comfort evaluation. Plan

Yu, Lei and Jian Kang. Modeling Subjective Evaluation of Soundscape Quality in Urban Open Spaces: An Artificial Neural Network Approach. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 126 (2009): 1173.

BAKER 6 NOISE AND PUBLIC HEALTH It is possible, through the filtering of ambient noise, to reproduce the effects of Muzak in order to stimulate a new kind of worker, desperately in need of public health spaces. While many architects tend to celebrate the mobility of todays office worker and the reduced demands on office space, in reality the contemporary mobile worker consumes unprecedented rates of healthcare products and services, from medication to therapy. For example, the Professionals in Crisis program at The Menninger Clinic in Houston, Texas, specializes in treating psychiatric disorders, addiction, and stress of professionals and other high-achieving individuals. Filtered noise allows people to experience their environment with the comfort of knowing they can be heard. To be in an urban space where one cannot be heard undermines the basis for reciprocal human relationships and therefore a psychologically healthful urban environment. But to filter a citys din in service of public health, one must identify sites and analyze their specific noises. NOISE FILTERED AS SOUND The constant flow of freeway traffic under the pedestrian bridge is common to many overpass bridges. At the Aquatic Park in Berkeley, California, the pedestrian overpass is unique in its negotiation of sound among marina pedestrians, the adjacent animal shelters animals and volunteers, plus the neighborhoods low-middle income residents. The early morning sound of barking dogs and crowing roosters are mitigated by city noise ordinances, and normally an animal shelter would fall under the jurisdiction of such legislative zoning. The proximity of the shelter to the freeway and its location in a residential zone that already has a train track running through are factors that allow its exception to noise ordinance enforcement. The sacrifice here is the added stress of the freeway on the animals and volunteers who must walk dogs in the neighborhood.

BIRD CALLS

PROPELLER PLANE

JET PLANE

HUMAN SPEECH

CAR ENGINE STARTING

Fig. 6

Using bird calls as an example of a communication signal, we see from this sonogram that masking is caused by the close-range starting and subsequent driving of an automobile. Neither the propeller plane nor the commercial jet plane are masking the bird calls in this example, however the frequency bandwidth of the jet plane does border human speech. If the jet plane were close enough it would have a great enough amplitude to impact speech.

BAKER 7 The noise issues of an animal shelter and its dog walking community surrounded by train tracks, a freeway, and its elevated off ramp, in the presence of an adaptable modular structure that responded to varying site conditions to mitigate masking in the ranges associated with animals in the shelter could be accomplished by using transondent tiles, porous and dematerialized surfaces, in generic assemblies or structural frames. Deployed parallel to the freeway along the routes commonly taken to walk dogs from the animal shelter, as well as around the lot lines of the shelter that border noisy infrastructure, the transondent structure enables a more calm environment for distressed animals. The island of Alameda is a high-middle income neighborhood separated from the middle and lower income neighborhoods of East Oakland and San Leandro by a channel and bay. The sports and convention arenas often have loud events, and on September 29, 2012, an outdoor rave in the O.co coliseum caused thousands of phone calls to city administrators of Oakland, San Leandro, and Alameda. The bulk of the calls came from Alameda, totaling over 1,500 calls (or 2% of the citys total population). It was the low frequency bass rattling the windows that kept these taxpaying homeowners from sleeping, who were upset about the misuse of Oaklands public property. Oakland responded by claiming that it would ensure the coliseum would hold such events indoors, but the future of the situation remains uncertain. A sonogram of the area reveals constant low frequency ambient noise at relatively high levels. The problem is that at night, this background noise disappears and a pulsing sound causes high contrast

Fig. 7 A barrier of sandblasted ceramic tiles would absorb low frequency noise caused by an outdoor rave held at Oaklands O.co Coliseum. The signaloriented approach to noise abatement upholds the public issues related to sound by focusing on the specific frequencies of sound that inhibit citizens rights related to noise pollution.

BAKER 8 between the quiet night and the amplified music. A solution oriented toward masking the signal given off by the music utilizing community noise would mean the outdoor rave would simply blend into the background. By challenging the dominant receiver-oriented paradigm, signal-oriented planning and transondent architecture diffuse the soundscapes of densely populated areas and traffic corridors, mitigating negative effects of masking while keeping ambient noise nominal. Using thickness as the primary variable, transondent facings are capable of controlling which frequencies are absorbed by a sound wall. These facings could be further developed by testing custom acoustic tiles of sandblasted clay. By working with a combination of tile thickness and hole size and orientation, new transondent tiles would be modules in a generic structural frame that would absorb unwanted frequencies. These strategies will allow planning to be compatible to architecture, which will benefit from opening up its spaces to the sound of the environment without interfering with wanted communication signals. Architectural transondency thus reclaims anti-space. NOISE AND SOCIETY The seed for the idea of Muzak in anti-space may be said to have its roots in the worksong. This global human tradition has only been obscured by industry, and still exists in places where development has not masked this ancient part of society. Other ancient traditions, such as reading all texts out loud, are now all but completely eradicated. One day humans may return to these traditions, as principles and tactics of transondent architecture become commonplace. The public health promoted by restoring sound to the public realm, allowing sound control to signify the process by which people have immediate control over the soundscape of the city, will one day allow us to read aloud and sing as we labor. Cities, programmed according to relationships between activities and sound qualities, will feed their excess noise back into the hands of their creators. SOUND QUALITY ACTIVITY: SUPPORTS Creativity Labor Sleep / Focus DENIES Sleep / Focus Sleep Creativity / Labor

Volatile / Varying / Intermittent Rhythmic / Pulsing / Dynamic Steady / Stable / Constant

The large scale reconfiguration of urban space according to such relationships, through the use of transondent facings, allows for a permanent infrastructure that negotiates the predictable contingencies associated with noise from transportation networks, military activities, and construction processes. Inexpensive transondent facings can be manufactured locally, such as with sandblasted ceramic tiles, revolutionizing the economic and political transparency of noise abatement through their architectural aggregation. CONCLUSION Noise is a public health concern affecting almost everyone. The issues at stake are environmental justice, sleep depravation, and reduced altruism. The receiver-oriented acoustic ceiling tile and sound wall are solutions that will always ignore externalities. Some noise may represent mechanical inefficiency, but steady noise can be beneficial for repetitive tasks and menial labor. Transondency allows for connection to natural sounds, conquering anti-space without sacrificing signal fidelity. The urban impact lightens the ecological footprint of densely populated areas, yet issues of a transondent lifestyle may ultimately require a regression to older social norms such as reading aloud.

BAKER 9
Thin facing

Sound absorbtion coefficient ()

Thick facing

Frequency (Hz)

Fig. 7 The primary variable controlling the frequency absorbed by a transondent facing is thickness. Other variables include the size and orientation of the voids in the mass, as well as the material reflectance and porosity of the mass itself. SOURCES AUDC, Sumrell & Varnelis. The Stimulus Progression: Muzak and the Culture of Horizontality. Verb: Conditioning. Barcelona: ACTAR, 2006. Brewster, Michael. Geneva By-Pass. Pamphlet Architecture 16: Architecture as a Translation of Music. Princeton, 1994. Buckley, Cara. Dangerous Decibels: Working or Playing Indoors, New Yorkers Face an Unabated Roar. New York Times. July 19, 2012. Thompson, Emily. The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900-1933. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002. Warren, Paige, et al. Urban Bioacoustics: Its Not Just Noise. Animal Behaviour 71 (2006): 491-502. Yu, Lei and Jian Kang. Modeling Subjective Evaluation of Soundscape Quality in Urban Open Spaces: An Artificial Neural Network Approach. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 126 (2009): 1163-1174. Zhang, Mei and Jian Kang. Towards the Evaluation, Description, and Creation of Soundscapes in Urban Open Spaces. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 34 (2007): 68-86.

BAKER 10 PROPOSAL/CALENDAR Noise abatement, which can be defined as a set of strategies to reduce noise pollution, was initiated in 1907 by a law prohibiting boat chatter by horn-blowing in New York Citys harbors. The excessive horn-blowing was disturbing the sleep of the citys hospital patients, thereby making it a public health concern. This model of legislating against the source of a disturbing noise I have designated as source-oriented planning. This paradigm had to be expanded as sound insulation technology developed rapidly during the twentieth century, forcing legislation to require the use of such technology to require its use in shielding the person hearing excess noise. This new paradigm I have designated as receiver-oriented, contains the source-oriented model firmly rooted within it. By challenging the dominant receiver-oriented paradigm, signal-oriented planning and transondent architecture diffuse the soundscapes of densely populated areas and traffic corridors, mitigating negative effects of excess noise while keeping ambient noise nominal. Using thickness as the primary variable, transondent facings are capable of controlling which frequencies are absorbed by a sound wall. These facings could be further developed by testing custom acoustic tiles of sandblasted ceramics. By working with a combination of tile thickness and hole size and orientation, new transondent tiles would be modules in a generic structural frame that would absorb unwanted frequencies. Porosity and dematerialization will also be explored, not only as tectonic material qualities, but as urban strategies that allow new programmatic adjacencies. These material and urban operations will allow architecture to be compatible with planning, which will benefit from opening up its spaces to the sound of the environment without masking wanted communication signals. New program configurations come as a result of the adding of subtraction: larger scale interventions that filter unusable signals. Architectural transondency thus reclaims anti-space, a name for the soundproofed interiors of modern buildings. 1 JAN 21 - JAN 25 DESIGN CHARETTE: 1:1 SCALE - CERAMIC TILE WALL 2 JAN 28 - FEB 1 DESIGN CHARETTE: 1:1 SCALE - CERAMIC TILE WALL 3 FEB 4 - FEB 8 REVISIT GAME EXERCISE FROM ARL TO FINE TUNE SOURCE-BARRIER SIMULATION 4 FEB 11 - FEB 15 APPLY PROGRAMMATIC ADJACENCIES USING SIMULATION 5 FEB 18 - FEB 22 DESIGN A PROJECT TESTING ADJACENCIES ON SITE 1: BERKELEY ANIMAL SHELTER 6 FEB 25 - MAR 1 DESIGN ANOTHER PROJECT ON SITE 2: MLK REGIONAL SHORELINE / EASTSHORE PARK 7 MAR 4 - MAR 8 REVISIT SIMULATION USING SPECIFIC INFORMATION FROM EACH PROJECT (MIDREVIEW) 8 MAR 11 - MAR 15 PROPOSE TWO TRANSONDENT ARCHITECTURAL ASSEMBLIES, ONE FOR EACH PROJECT 9 MAR 18 - MAR 22 FIELD TESTING: POTENTIAL OF BUILDING SYSTEM TO SUPPORT NEW PROGRAM 10 MAR 25 - MAR 29 SPRING BREAK (REFINE FIELD TESTS AND TRANSONDENT ASSEMBLIES) 11 APR 1 - APR 5 REVIEW #2 (THESIS DEFENSE) 12 APR 8 - APR 12 REVISIT SCRIPT/TRAILER/NARRATIVE EXERCISE FROM ARS 13-15 APR 15 - MAY 3 PRODUCTION 16 MAY 6 FINAL THESIS TALKS