Soundscape research on the Gezi Park – Tunel Square route

Abstract The properties of urban sound environments are subject to several factors, such as physical, social, cultural features of the city and people. Hence, urban soundscape studies are important for understanding the sound environments in a city from different points of view. In this study, soundscape research was designed and applied with practices, regarding the Gezi Park - Tunel Square route, specifying key locations as Gezi Park, Taksim Square, Galatasaray Square, and Tunel Square. This study is primarily reliant on the “soundwalk method,” which combines the ‘Positive Soundscape Project’ and ‘Schafer’s World Soundscape Project.’ Soundwalks were applied in the research field by silently walking along the route, and after the walk, questions about the soundscape characteristics of the route and its perceptual features were answered by the participants. With the results of questionnaires, and by means of semantic descriptors (which were used by participants to express the soundscapes of key locations), soundscape characteristics on the route were discussed. Subjective parameters and psychoacoustic parameters which was obtained via binaural recordings and post-signal analysis were compared with regards to their effects on soundscapes. The aim was to find out the perceived soundscape characteristics of four key locations and factors that affect soundscape classification along the route.

[1]  Paulo Henrique Trombetta Zannin,et al.  Analysis and evaluation of soundscapes in public parks through interviews and measurement of noise. , 2009, The Science of the total environment.

[2]  Jian Kang,et al.  Soundscape in the sustainable living environment: A cross-cultural comparison between the UK and Taiwan. , 2014, The Science of the total environment.

[3]  Fausto E. Rodriguez‐Manzo.  Towards a classification of the "sonic character" of the architectural space , 2008 .

[4]  Asli Ozcevik,et al.  A study on the documentation and analysis of the urban acoustical environment in terms of soundscape/Kentsel akustik cevrenin isitsel peyzaj yaklasimi ile belgelenmesi ve analizi uzerine bir calisma , 2012 .

[5]  A. Ozcevik,et al.  Soundscape and the Adaptation of Soundscape to Covered Spaces , 2011 .

[6]  D. Hall,et al.  Perception of soundscapes: An interdisciplinary approach , 2013 .

[7]  Rebecca Cain,et al.  The positive soundscape project : a synthesis of results from many disciplines , 2009 .

[8]  Per Hedfors,et al.  Site Soundscapes Landscape architecture in the light of sound , 2003 .

[9]  William J. Davies,et al.  The effects of expectation on the perception of soundscapes , 2014 .

[10]  Danièle Dubois,et al.  Urban soundscapes: Experiences and knowledge , 2005 .

[11]  Mostafa Refat Ismail,et al.  Sound preferences of the dense urban environment: Soundscape of Cairo , 2014 .

[12]  Bryan C. Pijanowski,et al.  Human and policy dimensions of soundscape ecology , 2014 .

[13]  William J. Davies,et al.  Soundscapes : an urban planning process map , 2009 .

[14]  Paul Jennings,et al.  A Framework for Improving Urban Soundscapes , 2013 .

[15]  William J. Davies,et al.  Soundwalking as a methodology for understanding soundscapes , 2008 .

[16]  Monika Rychtarikova,et al.  Soundscape categorization on the basis of objective acoustical parameters , 2013 .