Sound Up is an interdisciplinary arts-based research project, building on community engagement in data collection and artistic co-creation with a focus on sound. The project seeks – on a practical as well as theoretical level – to enable an improved quality of life (for all living beings) in residential areas and public (urban) spaces through a considered artistically inspired (re-)design of the sonic environment.

Through cooperation across a diverse interdisciplinary team, ranging from (sound) artists to landscape architects, and from historians and ethnographers to sound studies scholars, the project develops new insights and tools of relevance to such practical and applied fields as urban design and regional development.

Additionally, the project is designed to establish new active collaborations with stakeholders and businesses in order to set this innovative approach in practice, and thereby to contribute tangibly to the green transition and development of sustainable and more attractive living environments.

Results

Cities are transforming rapidly, and these changes profoundly affect their soundscapes. Urban planners, developers, and policy makers still implement rules and regulations dealing with noise reduction without addressing the social, political, cultural, and affective dimensions of sound (Tarlao et al. 2024; Steele et al. 2023; Vegt et al. 2025). Furthermore, they often fail to consider sound’s positive capacity for creating vibrant, inspiring, and livable spaces. These gaps limit opportunities for crafting a sonic environment that enhances well-being and social cohesion, while also attending to inclusivity and biodiversity (Cobussen 2023).

In response to these challenges, Sounding Urban Places explored how artistic approaches to sound design in urban environments can contribute to well-being, sustainability, and community engagement. The project was set in two locations undergoing contrasting yet comparable transitions – the Binckhorst area in The Hague (NL) and the mining town of Kiruna (SWE). The project brought researchers from architecture, sound studies, industrial history, and audio engineering together with practitioners from a wide range of sonic and musical practices. It adopted methodological pluralism, combining methods from multiple disciplines – including field recording, audio-based interviews, soundwalks, and participatory mapping – to investigate how citizens experience urban sound (Cobussen et al., 2025). To establish further dialogue with citizens in the two areas, the research teams created sound installations and compositions, an online sound map, podcasts, and geolocated audio walks, while also organizing workshops and guided listening walks. This combination of artistic, academic, and educational approaches proved effective in engaging diverse communities. It also offered valuable insights into their experiences of place and identity through sound, as well as into the potential for citizen participation in future-oriented thinking about possibilities to create liveable and sustainable sonic atmospheres.

One aim of the project was to achieve methodological innovation by developing participatory, artistic and cross-disciplinary methods for documenting change in soundscapes over time. For this purpose, an online platform, SoundUpMap, was established, forming an archive of geotagged sound recordings made in The Binckhorst by researchers and students from the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague in 2012, while also inviting users and residents to upload new audio recordings. The platform aims to make audible urban transformations and raise awareness among residents, (landscape) architects, project developers and city councils of the direct impact of infrastructural transitions on the Binckhorst’s sonic character. In Kiruna, stimulated recall interviews with inhabitants formed the major part of the collaborative data collection. These interviews provided material for qualitative analysis used in academic papers and in sound installations, giving voice to people’s experience of sound and memory in the town’s transformation. Further data was collected in workshops using the Participatory Geographic Information System approach. This appeal to ‘citizen science’ was successful, although guided activities such as sound walks, workshops, and co-creative work with residents and a local secondary school clearly yielded more direct and useful input than open invitations to contribute to an online platform. The research project invites further critical development of the participatory methods that were tested.

The main findings of the project can be summarized as follows:

● In general, residents expect their neighborhood to offer restful and quiet places. However, our research also shows the importance of varied and more complex sound experiences that evoke a sense of life and belonging.

● People who feel attached to the neighborhood in which they worked or lived for years often have positive memories of area-specific sounds and their associations with specific activities. Whether interviewees valued sounds positively or negatively strongly relied on personal connotations. Even loud industrial noises were appreciated by residents and entrepreneurs as part of the local soundscape if they had a positive connotation.

● In areas of deep urban transformation, questions about what to preserve from the past usually focus on material and visible heritage. Characteristic sounds are rarely included in considerations surrounding heritage preservation. We found that sound artists can play a crucial role in changing this perspective by creatively using acoustic or recorded sounds to evoke memories and feelings of connectedness and to increase awareness of a shared intangible cultural heritage.

● Examples from both locations illustrate how artistically inspired engagement with soundscapes can shape social and cultural experiences in urban spaces, demonstrating how sonic artworks can enrich a city’s identity and foster social interaction, inclusivity, and connectivity.

Sounding Urban Places has explored urban transformation in two different but comparable places. The findings are, however, more generally relevant, as further outlined in a White paper. To create sound-conscious cities, we recommend:

● Developing guidelines for pro-active design of soundscapes: moving beyond noise control to create sonic atmospheres that inspire and connect citizens and enhance well-being.

● Recognizing the sonic impact of construction work in large-scale and long-term urban development plans. Explain their temporary necessity, but make construction works predictable and controllable by giving agency to residents as well.

● Supporting participatory approaches: fund initiatives that involve citizens in engaging with their sonic environment through workshops and soundwalks.

● Encouraging collaboration: establish partnerships between urban planners, artists, and communities to co-create urban transformations.

● Paying attention to the role of sound in preserving local memories and culture and strengthening historical awareness. Consider making archived sounds accessible for residents and visitors, for instance, through geolocated walking routes or artworks in public spaces.

● Increasing awareness and creativity through education: train planners, architects, and educators in attentive listening and sound-conscious design principles.

Sound-conscious urban design is essential for sustainable, livable cities. By embracing sound as a cultural and environmental resource, and by developing new collaborative approaches, policy makers, urban planners, educators, and art practitioners can proactively create sonic spaces that contribute to well-being, inclusivity, and resilience. Our findings indicate that participatory and artistic approaches can be effective strategies for the creation of sound-conscious cities. Such approaches can improve qualities of both use and stay; potential problems with noise pollution can be identified and resolved as early as the design phase. Careful planning of a sound environment therefore makes it possible for cities to meet sustainability goals while improving quality of life for their citizens.

References

Cobussen, M., S. Östersjö, P. Craenen, J. Bennett, R. Zentschnig, I. Ruipérez Canales, and J. Berg (2025). “The Sonic (Re)Design of Urban Places: Auditory Transformations In The Hague (NL) and Kiruna (S).” In Proceedings of the 11th Convention of the European Acoustics Association. Málaga, June 23 – 26.

Cobussen, M. (2023). “The Role of Sound Art in Soundscape Design.” Proceedings of the 10th Convention of the European Acoustics Association Forum Acusticum: 2057-2061. https://www.doi.org/10.61782/fa.2023.0038

Guastavino, C., V. Fraisse, S. D’Ambrosio, E. Legast, and M. Lavoie (2022). “Designing sound installations in public spaces: A collaborative research creation approach.” In M. Filimowicz (ed.), Designing Interaction for Music and Sound. Abingdon: Routledge.

Steele, D. and C: Guastavino (2021). “Quieted City sounds during the COVID-19 pandemic in Montreal.” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 18/11, Article 11. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18115877

Steele, D., E. Bild, and C. Guastavino (2023). “Moving past the sound-noise dichotomy: How professionals of the built environment approach the sonic dimension.” Cities 132, 103974: 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2022.103974

Tarlao, C., F. Leclerc, J. Brochu, and C. Guastavino (2024). “Current Approaches to Planning (With) Sound.” Science of The Total Environment 931: 1-11.

Vegt, K.R., J.E. Elberse, B.T. Rutjens, and L.K. Hessels (2025). “Make America quiet again: Achieving socially robust knowledge on noise pollution through citizen science.” Public Understanding of Science 34/8: 1066-1087. https://doi.org/10.1177/09636625251338190

LTU website: https://www.ltu.se/en/research/centres-of-excellence-and-collaborations/ltu-arc/research-projects/research-projects/2024-10-31-sounding-urban-places

Sound Up MAP: https://soundupmap.com/en/

White paper: https://www.ltu.se/download/18.2ac50cac19c47b03ab37f3/1770740544966/Whitepaper%20SUP.pdf