Explauralisation : the experience of exploring architecture made audible

In this paper we propose an open source design tool that allows designers to easily conceive, evaluate and design the full auditory experience of a building, based on a digital three-dimensional model. A guiding principle has been the dynamic nature of the configuration of sound sources and listeners. Hence, a system is created that enables sound sources as well as listeners to be defined as moving entities. Furthermore, the ability exists for listeners, in their own movements and interactions, to generate sounds as well. In the system, proposed in this paper, ray-tracing is used to simulate the spatial acoustics. The paper discusses the considerations regarding several implementation choices and regarding adoption of the tool in the architectural design process.