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1. Methodology At first look, music and architecture seem unrelated, but they share features such as composition, rhythm, repetition and analogies. Acoustic data encoded from the built environment provides a valuable platform on which discordant and imbalanced parts can be highlighted [Liapi et al. 2011]. The cognitive process of analyzing today’s chaotic urban eco-system can be augmented with cross-modal understanding and intervening through the ecosystem’s musical footprint. Based on a grammar which connects musical with architectural elements, we present a system that offers sonification of an Urban Virtual Environment (UVE), simulating a real-world cityscape, offering visual interpretation and interactive modification of its soundscape (Figure 1). The exciting methodology analyzed in this paper expands the hearing experience of the urban environment by marking its basic spatial elements and transforming them to sounds. Any given path of an urban setup can be marked in order to create its soundscape with sounds produced by selected musical instruments which blend in a harmonized manner. A 3D simulation of an urban environment is created including urban constructs fundamental for “reading”. These are: buildings, paths, gaps, stairs etc. Every object category is translated to a different sound such as buildings represented by piano, openings by saxophone etc. Building blocks are provided by the system and external objects can be included. Once the environment is assembled, the user can choose an urban path to translate to sound. The path is then scanned from the starting to the ending edge and the sound representation of the objects on that path is saved in a MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) file. We propose an encoding-decoding mechanism between urban elements and notes, which employs music composition rules. We then apply a series of music composition rules in order to tune the acoustic result and eliminate discordant elements. The refined music notes are decoded back into urban elements. The resulting urban environment is a more balanced eco-system, viable and sustainable. Cities can be tuned. We provide tools to designers in preserving the eco-systems viability and originality. This methodology reveals patterns, not visible to the human eye, which can be analyzed and re-used to create new eco-systems. |
