Sensory Urbanism: Researchers make the case for fighting 'visual bias in urban planning'

2022-06-14T19:51:00-04:00

The work of Concordia University Centre for Sensory Studies director David Howes and other researchers working in the growing field of sensory urbanism was recently highlighted by Jennifer Hattam of MIT Technology Review.

A wide range of methods ranging from the high-tech and data-driven, to more ethnographic and experience-based ones, are being used as a means to combat the “limiting visual bias” they see as inherent in most urban planning schemes. Hattam writes, "Around the world, researchers like Howes are investigating how nonvisual information defines the character of a city and affects its livability. Using methods ranging from low-tech sound walks and smell maps to data scraping, wearables, and virtual reality, they’re fighting what they see as a limiting visual bias in urban planning."

Previously reported on Archinect: Cooper Hewitt's sensory-focused exhibition, “The Senses: Design Beyond Vision”

Early real-world applications in Berlin, London, Barcelona, and Instanbul have ...

Soundscapes: Atlantikwall

2011-05-12T15:55:09-04:00

I was driven instead by a curiosity about how the structures are used today and how they have settled into the everyday landscape. This is not a bunker archaeology or philosophy, as Virilio would have it, but a bunker sociology — a bunker acoustic ecology.

Nick Sowers, author of the classic UC Berkeley Archinect School Blog, has an essay published at Places discussing "Bunker Archaeology and Acoustic Ecology", with recordings of World War II bunker landscapes. For more backstory on Nick's work and research, make sure to visit his archived blog.

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Sensory Urbanism: Researchers make the case for fighting 'visual bias in urban planning'

Soundscapes: Atlantikwall