Very often people ask: when is loud too loud?
We perceive noise rather subjectively and some people find certain sounds or noises more disturbing than others. Therefore the question “when is loud too loud?” can be answered very differently from person to person.
Also regulations and laws provide different thresholds, although there is common agreement that noise can be an health hazard due to long term exposure to it.

In this newsletter we report some of the key thresholds set up by existing regulations and laws at the international, European and German levels.  Continue reading →

We are thrilled to invite you to a great soundwalk on Tuesday, 11th September 2018, from 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm in Mitte around Pankstraße area.

Date: Tuesday, 11 September 2018
Time: 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm
Meeting point: Ruheplatzstrasse/Antonstrasse (at the bench)

Organized by: Senate Department for the Environment, Transport and Climate Protection, led by Dr. Antonella Radicchi, TU Berlin

Registration: The number of participants is limited to 25. Please register by 6th September 2018 at fachgremium@leises.berlin.de indicating if you are from the Pankstraße area (districts Gesundbrunnen and Wedding).

Berlin Noise Action Planning
The Berlin Senate Department for the Environment, Transport and Climate Protection is currently working on the next Berlin Noise Action Plan 2018-2023. As part of the public participation campaign, 1,500 noise areas have been reported by the Berlin citizens at www.leises.berlin.de. In addition to identifying areas where it is currently too loud, the noise action plan also aims to identify and strengthen quiet areas, where you recover from the daily hustle and bustle.

This is where you come in! Continue reading →

Inter-Noise 2018, The Anxious City Festival, the Valuing Landscape Conference: In the next two weeks, Antonella will be part of important conferences on noise control, health, well-being and landscape in the urban context. We are grateful and looking forward to the opportunity to enter into dialogue with experts from many different fields and to disseminate the Hush City project.

And we even got featured on TV last week.

Read below more on recent activities and events.  Continue reading →

On July 18th 2018 many fabulous activities were organized all around the world to celebrate the World Listening Day and sensitize people about the importance of listening and living in healthy environments.

This year the overall theme was “Future Listening” and in Berlin we celebrated it with two soundwalks in the Reuterkiez, Neukölln. The soundwalks were organized by Dominik and Stefanie of the Stadtteilbüro Reuterkiez and guided by Dr. Antonella Radicchi, TU Berlin.

We are deeply grateful to the participants in the soundwalks for their interest, commitment, energy and passion: this newsletter reporting on the soundwalks’ outputs is therefore dedicated to them.

By sharing this story, we also hope to grasp your curiosity on soundwalks as a powerful participatory method to evaluate the sonic environment and its impact on our health and quality of life!

Soundwalks’ procedure

The meeting point was at the Kinder Kiosk at Reuterplatz. After a short introduction, we started with few “ear cleaning” exercises led by Antonella to open the ears. Then, we walked along a predefined route, composed of 5 listening points: two pocket squares/parks (Reuterplatz and Weichselplatz), two busy roads (Pannierstrasse and Sonnenallee) and a residential road (Weichselstrasse).

Map showing the soundwalks’ path and the 5 listening points: 1) Reuterplatz, 2) Pannierstrasse, 3) Sonnenallee, 4) Weichselstrasse and 5) Weichselplatz. Image source: © A. Radicchi, Hush City Mobile Lab 2018, TU Berlin

At the listening points, participants were invited to listen to the environment and afterwards reply to a structured questionnaire, composed of open and closed questions.
The questions addressed: 1) the perceived quietness of the places, 2) positive and 3) negative sounds influencing the sense of quietness of the places, 4) appropriateness of the sonic environment, 5) the matching of the sonic environment with participants’ desires and 6) actions to be taken to improve/protect the sonic quality of the places.
In parallel, Antonella took binaural recordings using the SQoBold, gently sponsored by HEAD Acoustics. Instant noise measurements were also taken with a SAUTER SU 130 sound meter.
At the end of the soundwalk, participants reflected on the overall experience by replying to three open questions. Afterwards, we had a group discussion about the overall experience.
This procedure was repeated for both the soundwalks, held at 5 pm and 7 pm.
Mr. Matthew Finnemore supported with the German translation, as necessary.

First results of data evaluation

Applying the soundscape approach to study the sonic environment means to study how “people perceive, understand and /or experience the acoustic environment in context” (ISO 2014). On the other hand, traditional acoustic planning relies on noise measurements and calculations mainly addressing noise from traffic. To bridge the two approaches, we cross-analyzed the noise levels measured at each place with the level of perceived quietness expressed by the participants thought a 5-point linear scale (not quiet-very quiet).
The results are illustrated in the diagram below.

Diagram showing the cross-evaluation of the noise levels with the level of perceived quietness expressed by the participants at the 5 places. Results from the soundwalk held at 5pm are displayed on the left side; Results from the soundwalk held at 7pm are displayed on the right side. Image source: © C. Weber, Hush City Mobile Lab 2018, TU Berlin

Overall, the results show consistency between the noise levels and the level of quietness perceived by the participants, confirming the assumption that citizens can be considered as smart, active sensors in the context of soundscape evaluation processes (Radicchi et al. 2017).

Reuterplatz, the first listening point, represented an exception.
Reuterplatz was perceived “not quiet” and “slightly quiet”, and even noisier than Weichselplatz although the measurements showed the opposite. At Reuterplatz we measured 52, 5 dB(A) and 51 dB(A), whereas at Weichselplatz we measured 55.1 dB(A) and 54.5 dB(A).
This discrepancy was further discussed at the end of the soundwalks.
Participants seemed to agree that Reuterplatz was perceived noisier due to the nearby cobblestone streets, which make the sounds of vehicles very loud. This is confirmed also by the word-clouds reporting positive and negative sounds as perceived at Reuterplatz (see the word clouds below).

Place 1: Reuterplatz. Word clouds showing the negative and positive sounds indicated by the participants in the first soundwalk (on the left and right side, respectively). Image source: © C. Weber, Hush City Mobile Lab 2018, TU Berlin

Place 1: Reuterplatz. Word clouds showing the negative and positive sounds indicated by the participants in the second soundwalk (on the left and right side, respectively). Image source: © C. Weber, Hush City Mobile Lab 2018, TU Berlin

Although participants claimed for the noise at Reuterplatz, they also found positive sounds for their perception of quietness, such as: sounds of the wind through the leaves, bird chirping, voices of children and people’s whispering.

Weichselplatz, the last listening point (5), was perceived quieter than Reuterplatz, despite the higher noise levels (55.1 dB(A) and 54.5 dB(A)).
This aspect was deepened at the end of the soundwalk. Some of the participants correlated it with the square size and visual quality of the area. Weichselplatz is indeed relatively bigger than Reuterplatz: the nearby streets were perceived as more distant and consequently traffic noise as less annoying.
Conversely, one participant found Weichselpatz “not quiet” at all and correlated this perception with individual expectation: by commenting that they expected streets to be noisy and pocket parks and small squares as very quiet! Therefore, at Weichselplatz traffic noise was perceived as even more disturbing.
Size and quality of the trees had also a positive impact on the perception of quietness at Weichselplatz, as confirmed by the word-clouds showing the sounds perceived as positive and negative. The participants rated as positive sounds the wind through the trees, along with bird tweeting, sounds of steps and people’s voices (see the word clouds below).

Place 5: Weichselplatz. Word clouds showing the negative and positive sounds indicated by the participants in the first soundwalk (on the left and right side, respectively). Image source: © C. Weber, Hush City Mobile Lab 2018, TU Berlin

Place 5: Weichselplatz. Word clouds showing the negative and positive sounds indicated by the participants in the second soundwalk (on the left and right side, respectively). Image source: © C. Weber, Hush City Mobile Lab 2018, TU Berlin

Among the participants, there was consensus in rating Pannierstrasse and Sonnenallee (Place 2 and 3) as “not quiet” and “slightly quiet”: also noise measurements reported 58.1 dB(A) and 61.3 dB(A) at Pannierstrasse and 68 dB(A) and 68.2 dB(A) at Sonnenallee.
Traffic noise was indicated as negative by the majority of the participants (see the word clouds below). At Pannierstrasse, few positive sounds counterbalanced traffic noise, such as sounds of the church bells and the wind, music and clattering sounds coming from the nearby restaurants (see the word clouds below).

Place 2: Pannierstrasse. Word clouds showing the negative and positive sounds indicated by the participants in the first soundwalk (on the left and right side, respectively). Image source: © C. Weber, Hush City Mobile Lab 2018, TU Berlin

Place 2: Pannierstrasse. Word clouds showing the negative and positive sounds indicated by the participants in the second soundwalk (on the left and right side, respectively). Image source: © C. Weber, Hush City Mobile Lab 2018, TU Berlin

At Sonnenallee, traffic noise was overwhelming. The majority of the participants mainly reported that no sounds (“keine”) would influence their perception of quietness in a positive way (see the word clouds below). Interestingly, a participant indicated inner quietness (“Innere-Ruhe”) as a positive sound. Although people are very able in copying with noise – relying on personal capacities and making themselves “deaf” – this process costs energy and it does not protect us from the harmful effects of noise pollution.

Place 3: Sonnenallee. Word clouds showing the negative and positive sounds indicated by the participants in the first soundwalk (on the left and right side, respectively). Image source: © C. Weber, Hush City Mobile Lab 2018, TU Berlin

Place 3: Sonnenallee. Word clouds showing the negative and positive sounds indicated by the participants in the second soundwalk (on the left and right side, respectively). Image source: © C. Weber, Hush City Mobile Lab 2018, TU Berlin

Evaluation of the fourth place (corner Weichselstrasse and Weserstrasse) highlighted the issue of nightlife noise increasingly affecting the neighborhood in recent times.
During the first soundwalk, noise readings measured 51.3 dB(A) at 18:20; whereas, during the second soundwalk, the noise levels were higher (62.9 dB(A) at 20:00) due to the recreational activities going on at nearby bars and clubs. People’s perception confirmed the measurements.
Participants of the first soundwalk mainly perceived the area as “fairly quiet”, whereas participants of the second soundwalk as “not quiet” at all. This difference was further confirmed by the analyses of the negative sounds indicated by the participants of the second soundwalk. The number and types of negative sounds rose and included noise from bars (“Kneipenlärm”) and deep bass sounds (“Bässe”) (see the word clouds below).

Place 4: Weichselstrasse. Word clouds showing the negative and positive sounds indicated by the participants in the first soundwalk (on the left and right side, respectively). Image source: © C. Weber, Hush City Mobile Lab 2018, TU Berlin

Place 4: Weichselstrasse. Word clouds showing the negative and positive sounds indicated by the participants in the second soundwalk (on the left and right side, respectively). Image source: © C. Weber, Hush City Mobile Lab 2018, TU Berlin

Key-findings

Not surprisingly, traffic noise was indicated as one of the most disturbing sounds. Nightlife was reported as being a novel, albeit dramatic, noise source in the neighbourhood.
Planners usually overlook nightlife noise, due to the lack of specific policies addressing this issue. At the European, national and local levels noise regulations mainly addresses air, railroad and road traffic noise.
On the other hand, participants indicated bird-chirping, sounds of the wind through leaves and trees, kids’ and peoples’ voices as sounds that positively influence their perception of quietness.

So, what actions can be taken to reduce noise pollution, protect quiet areas and improve the sonic qualities of our cities?

Participants in the soundwalks had clear ideas and indicated numerous strategies. Read them below!

Actions to improve Reuterplatz:

• Reuterplatz must be preserved
• Turn Reuterplatz into a car-free zone
• Improve street quality at Reuterstrasse, implementing attractive design projects
• Reduce and control speed limit at Reuterstrasse: almost no one sticks to the current speed limit (T 30)
• Replace the cobblestones at Reuterstrasse with smooth road surface
• Turn Reuterstrasse into a bike-friendly street, by blocking or limiting car access to the area
• Launch a noise awareness campaign
• Ban glass bottles

Actions to improve Pannierstrasse

• Turn Pannierstrasse into a bike-friendly street, by blocking or limiting car access to the area
• Reduce and control speed limit from 50 km/h to 30 km/h
• Implement electric public transportation means
• Make buses quieter
• Plant more trees so to increase natural sounds and reduce noise pollution
• Limit outdoor dining
• Enforce/Improve skateboarding regulations

Actions to improve Sonnenallee

• Turn Sonnenallee into a bike-friendly street, by blocking or limiting car access to the area
• Limit traffic to one lane
• Reduce and control speed limit from 50 km/h to 30 km/h
• Implement electric public transportation means

Actions to improve Weichselstrasse

• Replace the cobblestones with smooth road surface
• Reduce outdoor dining
• Limit food services activities
• Ban outdoor seating after 22.00
• Enforce/Improve skateboarding regulations
• Plant more trees
• Extend the bike lane

Actions to improve Weichselplatz

• Protect and preserve the park
• Turn Weichselplatz into a car-free zone
• Ban loud motorcycles
• Plant more trees around the playground for noise reduction
• Enhance the meadow
• Add more “comfortable” seats
• Implement outdoor wood flooring
• Add outdoor sport equipment
• Lubricate the gates

Conclusion

The soundwalks in the Reuterkiez were a great opportunity to reflect on how we would like Neukölln to sound in the future and how this can impact on issues like: mobility, tourism, public health and the environment.

This experience also confirmed citizens’ valuable contribution to the evaluation and planning of the sonic environment.

We therefore hope that soundwalks, as participatory and inclusive practices, will be more and more common in city planning.

Did you like our report? Do you have questions and/or comments?

We would love to hear from you, so please drop us a message at: info@opensourcesoundscapes.org.

Scrollen Sie nach unten, um den Beitrag auf Deutsch zu lesen /// Scroll down for reading the post in German

We are thrilled to inform you that we have just released a new free version of the Hush City app!

Would you like to give it a try?

New features include:

1) Onboarding screens

Launch Hush City app and three onboarding screens (see Image 1) will pop up and give you an overview of how you can make the best out of Hush City app!
With Hush City app you can MAP AND ASSESS everyday quiet areas; SHARE the quiet areas with your community of friends and contacts; DISCOVER everyday quiet areas crowdsourced in your city or in other places worldwide.

Image 1: Onboarding screens, (c) Hush City app 2018

2) New languages

Hush City app is now available in 4 languages: English, German, Italian and Spanish! To select your favorite languages, just go to “Settings” and click on “Language”.
This great achievement was possible with the generous support of:

• Prof. Dr. Brigitte Schulte-Fortkamp (Technical University of Berlin) who kindly revised the German translation;
• Dr. Jerónimo Vida Manzano (University of Granada) who kindly prepared the Spanish translation;
• Dr. Arch. Antonella Radicchi (Technical University of Berlin) who curated the Italian translation.

We would like to thank them very much!

3) Search and sort by features

Display the quiet areas through the “List View Mode”, then click on the arrows placed at the top of the screen (see Image 2) to search and sort the everyday quiet areas by noise levels, city and number, both in ascending/descending order.

Image 2: Search and sort by features, (c) Hush City app 2018

4) Filters feature

You can apply the “Filters” feature, when the quiet areas are displayed both through the “Map View Mode” and the “List View Mode”. Just click on the “Funnel” icon and select the filter you would like to apply (see Image 3).
You can filter the everyday quiet areas according to their noise levels, the descriptors used to tag them, the perceived level of quietness, the overall quality, the accessibility.
Filters can be applied individually or in combination. If you want to cancel the filters, just click on the button “Reset”.

Image 3: Filters feature, (c) Hush City app 2018

5) Hush City Ambassador 

For the soundscape approach, people are the real experts of the places, where they live, work and spend time. So, your contribution to Hush City is fundamental to understand how you perceive, understand and/or experience urban quiet areas.
To properly recognize your role, we created the “Hush City Ambassador” feature!
When you submit a survey, you will receive a pop up message (see Image 4.1) informing that you have been nominated “Hush City Ambassador” of the city where you collected the survey.

Image 4.1: Pop up message “Hush City Ambassador”, (c) Hush City app 2018

You can track your participation by clicking on the dedicated icon displayed on home page’s menu (see Image 4.2, on the left).
To protect users’ privacy, the system automatically assigns to each user a nickname (see Image 4.2, on the right). If you would like to be publicly recognized, please send us an email and we will add your real name to the “Hush City Ambassador List”, accessible on the Hush CIty web-app.

Image 4.2: Hush City Ambassador icon (left) and Hush City Ambassador page (right), (c) Hush City app 2018

6) Share on social media

Depending on social media installed on your smartphone, you can share the everyday quiet areas through social media channels, such as Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook etc.
Just click on the button highlighted on Image 5 below.

Image 5: Share on social media, (c) Hush City app 2018

We hope you will enjoy the new version of the Hush City app and you will use it in the course of the summer to map, share & discover new (and fresh!) quiet spots in Berlin and beyond!

And, please, do not forget to share your feedback with us. Your feedback is fundamental to improving our work!

Acknowledgements: Hush City app’s new features hereby illustrated are part of the “Hush City Mobile Lab” project, which has received funding from HEAD-Genuit Foundation 

Image source: World Listening Day 2018 – FUTURE LISTENING

Soundwalk on 18 July 2018

• Starting time: 5pm and 7pm
• Meeting point: Kinder Kiosk at Reuterplatz
• Route: Reuterplatz – Pannierstraße – Sonnenallee – Weichselstraße – Weichselplatz
• Language: English/German
• With: Dr. Antonella Radicchi, in collaboration with Stadtteilbüro Reuterkiez

Do you know that July 18 is the World Listening Day?
Every year many fabulous activities are organized all around the world to sensitize about the importance of listening and to live in healthy sonic environments.
This year the overall them is “Future Listening”.
It is a great opportunity to reflect on how we would like Neukölln to sound in the future and how this can impact on issues like: mobility, tourism, public health and the environment.
We will be part of this worldwide event, by organizing the soundwalks in the Reuterkiez.
The soundwalk is free and open to everyone, but places are limited.
If you would like to participate, please send an email to: antonella.radicchi@tu-berlin.de

What is a soundwalk?
A soundwalk is a walk whose main purpose is listening to any sound of the environment: sounds which are close to and far from us, continuous and discontinuous, in the foreground and in the background; sounds that we like and noise that we don’t like.  Ears first, please!

Soundwalk instructions
The soundwalks will take place on July 18 2018 in the afternoon: the first soundwalk will start at 5pm; the second soundwalk will start at 7pm. Both soundwalk will last approximately 1,5 hour.

• We will start with the ear-cleaning exercises.
• Afterwards, we will walk in a line at a slow pace, in silence.
• At each of the listening points, we will stop and we will listen to the environment in silence for 1/2 minutes.
• Then the participants will be invited to reply to a simple questionnaire, composed of 5 questions.
• The questions will be the same per each listening point.
• At the end of the soundwalk, a group discussion will take place to reflect on the overall experience.

What’s next
Data collected during the soundwalks will be analysed and the results will be shared with the community for further reflections.
Privacy will be respected: no personal information will be shared either published.

Chattering, clinking bottles, music, breaking glass, dull bass, laughing. It’s summer in Berlin and people are meeting outside at plazas, streets, in front of bars, clubs and “Spätis” to enjoy the mild evenings. While one is exploring the urban night looking for amusement and distraction, the other is trying to sleep and recover from the daily hustle and bustle.

Traditionally night is a time-space of quietness and recovery. However, activities have increasingly extended into the night causing rising levels of nocturnal noise pollution for example due to traffic, urban maintenance and nightlife. The nocturnal city becomes a conflicting space where different needs and norms often seem to be more incompatible than during the day.

Contested space – the Berlin case
Nightlife is strongly interconnected with Berlin’s identity. However recent dynamics, such as gentrification and touristification processes, have led to a rising number of nightlife-related conflicts  – with noise being one of them – especially in popular dense inner city districts, as the Reuterkiez in Neukölln.
 
The neighborhood has undergone deep transformation processes in recent years, including rising rents and structural changes in demographics and in the business sector. The latter, particularly has led to the proliferation of cafés, bars and clubs especially along Weserstraße, which has turned into a nightlife hotspot as well as a place of conflicts.
 
Night clubbers, indeed, who enjoy spending the nights in Weserstraße drinking and chatting, can affect the quality of life of the residents, who apparently are increasingly suffering from insomnia caused by noise.
 
With sleep being crucial for our body to recover – e.g. favouring the renewing of cells and regulating our metabolism – a poor sleeping quality can negatively affect our mental and physical health, causing problems, spanning from cognitive impairments to obesity, hypertension and depression. Therefore, community groups in the Reuterkiez are fighting for the right to a quieter night!
 
Measurements against nocturnal noise
Besides enforcing actions, like curfews and bans, communicative measurements are increasingly being used to reduce nocturnal noise.

In the Reuterkiez, for example, signs in bar windows remind visitors to “respect the neighbors”, whereas in the district Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg night-time maps were distributed and pantomimes sent around to sensitize visitors (read more here).

Another interesting measure, first implemented in Amsterdam and currently on the rise, is the establishment of night mayors, acting as managers and mediators of the urban night. Read an interesting interview with the first night mayor here.
 
How can we solve this issue and find a balance between the right to nightlife and the right to rest? 
This is a crucial topic and it is still an open question at the policy level. We believe that people are the real experts and therefore they need to be included in planning and policy-making processes.

Would you like to share with us your thoughts and experiences? Are you affected by nocturnal noise? Have you envisioned strategies on how to protect quietness at night from nightlife? And, at the same time, to guarantee the right to party at night?

Do not hesitate to get in touch with us at info@opensourcesoundscapes.org or on Twitter at @btnoss or @HUSHCITYapp and let us know what you think!

Quiet regards from Berlin!
The Hush City Mobile Lab Team

Everyday Quiet Area of the week 

Aleea Șipotul Fântânilor, Bucharest 030167, Romania. This everyday quiet area is rated as lively and it is no. 11 of the Hush City Map