3.1 Methodologies Associated with Each Model

3.1.1 Methodological Framework Development

3.1.1.1 Main Methodological Components

When the WSP started to document the soundscape of Vancouver, no similar study had been accomplished – there were no methodologies available to guide the researchers and frame their process. The subjective and interdisciplinary components of the research project necessitated the design of a different methodology, which would combine objective measurements, ethnographic observations and the integration of social/cultural issues in the analysis of the soundscape. While the actual methodology used by the WSP was at no point described explicitly, a survey of the three main projects realised – the Vancouver soundscape, the cross-Canada tour and the five European villages – reveals five main methodological components: (a) spatial distribution, (b) time distribution (be it over a day or a decade), (c) legislation, (d) subjective reactions and (e) recordings. To obtain data in each of these areas, a series of observational techniques were designed. These various methods aimed at covering the soundscape through all its ‘perspectives’ – be it historical, cultural, economic, legal, geographic, etc.

The translation of sound into graphic representations is one of the many challenges faced by soundscape studies in its attempt to analyse and describe the sound environment. Traditional objective systems such as music notation and frequency spectrum graphics quickly appeared as inadequate when dealing with complex soundscapes and their perception. The WSP began to use alternative types of graphic representations to deal with issues of space, diffusion and to integrate several types of data (level, location, sound sources, profile…) into a single graphic form. Isobel maps such as the one of the Stanley Park presented in The Vancouver Soundscape (1978) were used to show decibel levels over a specific area, and to emphasise the main sound sources and their location. The comparison of isobel maps representing different times can also be used to examine the variations in levels corresponding to economic and social activities, or even natural causes (see the isobel maps illustrating the variations due to wind and the sound of waves at Lesconil; Schafer, 1977b, p. 41)

Acoustic profiles, the area across which a specific sound can be heard, were also mapped to explore dominant sounds and their relation to the acoustic community. In the Five Village Soundscapes (1977b), for instance, the acoustic profile of the church bell at Bissingen was used to emphasise the progressive rise of ambient level, and the “parallel between the shrinking acoustic space of the Cathedral bells and its dwindling congregation” (p. 15). The profiles also indicate if specific sound sources (traffic noise, for instance) may cause an environment to become lo-fi.

The distribution of sounds and sound levels over time has been extensively used by the WSP to identify rhythms, patterns, and to show how dominant sounds are often related to the dominant social or economic activities. Graphics based on sound counts and level readings are constructed and compared to identify, for instance, the importance of particular sound signals, the changes in ambient level a period of time, or the natural rhythms of the environment. These graphics have been used in the Five Village Soundscapes (1977b) to compare the sound environment of different towns based on objective data.

One of the first documents produced by the WSP was A Survey of Community Noise By-Laws in Canada (1972). This document, as its title indicates, presents the noise bylaws (or the absence thereof) of most of the Canadians cities whose population was over 25,000 in 1972. The goal of such a survey was, according to the group, “to enable legislators to compare notes” (World Soundscape Project, 1972, p. 1). However, when this survey of noise bylaws was extended to other continents (though unpublished), the WSP began to read cultural differences through legislation. Noise bylaws, Schafer argues, “can be read to reveal different cultural attitudes towards sound phobias” (1977c, p. 197). The silencing of specific sounds over others may also reveal changes in social structures. The notion of Sacred Noise, a sound which is not subjugated to bylaws, points on the other hand to sound source expressing a particular power, be it the “divine” sounds of the church bell or the modern sound of the plane taking off (Schafer, 1977c).

As a fourth approach to the study of the sound environment, the WSP has inquired into attitudes and subjective reactions to the soundscape or to particular sound sources, notably through interviews and surveys. As early as 1969, Schafer conducted (with the help of his students) a social survey on noise, in a way to “acquire statistical information about the public’s interest in, and opinion of, the problem of pollution” (Torigoe, 1982, p. 91). Later, during the 1975 tour leading to the publication of the Five Village Soundscapes (1977b), the team used Sound Preference Tests to survey the most liked and disliked sounds of children in every village. Interviews with “citizens with a special interest to their acoustic environment” (Schafer, 1977b, p. 67) were also conducted to gather additional information about the everyday relation of people to their environment, and in a way to complement their ‘outsider’ position as researchers and observers.

Finally, recordings of soundscapes and sound signals have been made in every environment studied by the World Soundscape Project. While these recordings were primarily considered for their archival and educational value, they also represented a very rich source of information, and their manipulation by the researchers/composers of the WSP initiated what later became known as soundscape composition (Truax, 1995). Montages and compositions based on field recordings were used notably in a radio series produced by the WSP for the CBC in 1974, Soundscapes of Canada. Members of the WSP such as Hildegard Westerkamp and Barry Truax continue to explore soundscape composition and its role in the larger context of soundscape studies and acoustic ecology (McCartney, 2000; Truax, 1993, 1995, 2002).

The extensive methodology developed by Pascal Amphoux with the CRESSON group and the IREC has been defined as an “interdisciplinary tool to analyse the sonic quality of urban spaces” (Amphoux, 1991, p. 12; my translation). It provides researchers with a detailed set of guidelines that have been designed and tested through a large comparative study of three Swiss cities (see Amphoux, 1991). While the approach ultimately led to the description of the sonic identity of a city as it is heard and experienced by local and foreign listeners, it also appears extremely valuable to any subjective analysis of a sound environment in which the focus is on inhabitant-listeners’ perspective. In this way, it is complementary to the WSP’s approach, which although was fundamentally qualitative, tended generally to emphasise the role of the external observer over the local listeners’ perspectives (Uimonen, 2002). The main problem encountered by soundscape researchers is that when they are interviewed, “people find it difficult to talk about issues that concern their everyday, contemporary sonic environment” (p. 171). If one wants to incorporate the sonic knowledge of local inhabitants to complement the researcher’s “fresh ear”, particular techniques must be deigned to trigger a sonic awareness, and allow non-expert listeners to express their relationships to their environment.

Amphoux’s methodology dealing with sonic identity is divided into three main steps, in order to provide researchers with a large amount and variety of information concerning people’s knowledge, opinions and perceptions of their sound environment. Recurrence through listener’s interviews will therefore guide the attention of researchers towards specific location, feature or design issues. The particular techniques used in each section will be described in more detail in the following section, according to their degree of integration in our proposed synthesis. The overall methodological process consists in the selection of specific locations, based on initial interviews and the use of sonic mind maps. Then, researchers produce documented recordings of these spaces, which are then re-presented out of context (on loudspeakers or headphones) to various local and foreign listeners. Finally, the information gathered is interpreted and synthesised, notably with the use of qualitative criteria, in a way to emphasise the overall sonic qualities proper to each location, and which constitute the unique sonic identity of the city.

The first step consists in the use of sonic memory to select representative locations to be further studied (Amphoux, 1991, 1993a). The use of sonic mind maps and phono-reputational inquiries will present researchers with a list of potential locations and an initial number of comments on each space. The final choices will be made based on the use of the C-V-S model; for a city-wide study, it is recommended to choose three to four spaces that express each of the types of relationship to the environment (known, lived, sensed) (Amphoux, 1993a). Data gathered in this section will also be used in the final, interpretative step of this methodology.

Once representative locations have been chosen, the second step, based on sonic perception, can be initiated. According to Amphoux (1993a), projects of smaller scale with limited resources or time may proceed directly to the third and final step. The second section constitutes both “a logical continuation on the technical level, in the sense that it focuses on selected locations, and a reprise, on the methodological level, since its objective is to re-use and specify the primary qualitative criteria found in the first phase” (Amphoux, 1991, p. 55; my translation). Amphoux provides very specific directives guiding the recording and subsequent studio-based montage of audio clips to be used in the reactivated listening sessions. The selected clips will be presented to a varied group of local (and foreign, if feasible) listeners covering three important dimensions of the city: the sonic (acousticians, visually-impaired people, musicians…), the spatial (architects, town-planners, historians…) and the socio-cultural dimensions (semioticians, psychologists, sociologists…) (Amphoux, 1991, p. 70). Then, the results of these extended interviews will be synthesised using a “chart of sequential analysis” (p. 74; my translation), providing researchers with significant components of the inquiries to be used in the final interpretation.

The third and final step involves the sonic interpretation of the city’s sonic identity features. This process will result in the production of a “sonic identity chart” (Hellström, 2003, p. 58; see also Appendix F) for each sequence/location, and which is composed of factual information about the sequence, listener’s comments, the application of corresponding qualitative criteria as well as expressions or quotes which are particularly evocative in their description or identification of a location or ambiance (see Amphoux, 1993a, p. 33).

3.1.1.2 Field Methods

The field observation methods developed by the WSP were specifically designed in order to gather a maximum of information about a particular soundscape, and to allow further analysis of these data through maps, graphs, comparisons and statistical measurement. In the case of the Five Village Soundscapes (1977b), the need for an efficient and complete method was even more evident, because of the limited time the team spent in each village (from seven to ten days). The practical methodology may be divided into two main parts, corresponding to the two traditional research paradigms: objective and quantifiable data to describe features of the soundscape on the one hand, and subjective, ethnographic information about people’s relation to the environment on the other.

To be able to create various maps, graphs and statistical charts, WSP researchers used extensive sound counts and sound level measurements produced over a particular area, or a specific period of time. A sound count consists in the counting of a particular type of sound heard in a specific location, in a way to express “a quantitative impression of the density of certain sounds” (Schafer, 1978, p. 64). When sound counts are compared over time, acoustic patterns may be discovered, and their unfolding can be detailed. Sound level measurements allow researchers to draw a map of the sound intensities of a location, and to evaluate changes in intensity through time. Measurements found in the WSP publications are either in dBA or dBC. Isobel maps generally use dBA (designed to reflect the human hearing curve), while in certain particular cases in which the low frequency range may play an important role, a comparison between A and C measurements is presented. It is the case for instance in the Five Village Soundscapes (1977b), when the impact of a loud car parking in a quiet environment is described using the two scales (Schafer, 1977b, p. 61), and to emphasise the prevalence of aircraft noise in Bissingen (p. 58). The same comparison is also used to reveal ‘hidden’ low frequencies felt in a quiet reading room (1977a, p. 31-2).

Recordings have been introduced in the field research of the WSP right from the beginning. Torigoe (1982) refers to 1972 as the first year during which team members produced recordings, in preparation for The Vancouver Soundscape (1978). In terms of recording techniques or methods, there seems to be no formal process; while particular attention is given to important sound signals and soundmarks, the collection of recordings from the WSP library (carefully preserved at the School of Communication, Simon Fraser University) presents a variety of soundwalks, events, themes, keynotes, signals, ambiences and others. In recordings from the cross-Canada tour, more specifically, certain themes such as train whistles, foghorns, church bells, disappearing sounds and local dialects and the “what’s on the AM radio” clips (Davis & Huse, 1974, p. 34) can be followed. However, one common feature of every recording made by the WSP members is that it is accompanied by an information card providing data such as the time and location of the recording, any atmospheric, historical, sociological information, tape speed, distance from the source, intensity level measured and any other pertinent data (Schafer, 1977b). Also included on this card is a set of visual representations used to describe the behaviour of the sound event over time, with parameters such as duration, dynamics, frequency/mass and fluctuations/grain for each main section of the sound (attack, body, decay).

To describe in more subjective and contextualised form the relations between the soundscape and its inhabitants, WSP researchers also use ethnographic resources, which can then be compared and combined with quantitative data. In the case of The Vancouver Soundscape (1978) and the Five Village Soundscapes (1977b), this begins with a visit to local archives, in search for bylaws, articles or stories which would provide historical information about the soundscape researched. Literature may also provide vivid descriptions of past soundscapes, as illustrated by Schafer’s extensive use of literary depictions from a large number of authors in The Tuning of the World (1977c). Historical data may also be found in ‘earwitness’ accounts from inhabitants. Interviews with elderly members of the Vancouver community, for instance, provided the WSP with descriptions of the city’s past soundscape called ‘earwitness accounts’ that could not be found elsewhere. In the same way, extremely valuable information was collected in Dollar, Scotland, through an in situ interview with the former town clerk (Schafer, 1977b).
These interviews are also extended to diverse members of a community, either because of their particular sensitivity to the soundscape or simply because they have something particular to express about it. In The Vancouver Soundscape (1978) for instance, inhabitants of two contrasting regions (central Vancouver and Vancouver Island’s countryside) were interviewed about their sound preferences and their appreciation of their sound environment (Schafer, 1978, p. 60-1). This provided researchers with subjective answers that could be compared, in a way to emphasise common themes and preferences. Similar types of information were obtained in the Five Village Soundscapes (1977b) by providing children from every town with a Sound Preference test. This test “simply asked for lists of the most liked and disliked sounds in the local environment” (p. 68). Results were then assessed in terms of the social, geographical or architectural features of each town.

At the core of an acoustic design program, according to Schafer, must lie exercises such as listening walks and soundwalks (1977c). These methods can also be applied to the exploration of a soundscape, as they emphasise sounds over sight. A listening walk is “simply a walk with a concentration on listening” (p. 212); this can be achieved anywhere, and is often essential in finding features such as keynotes, patterns, masking… Soundwalks, on the other hand, are “an exploration of the soundscape of a given area using a score” (p. 213). They are planned tours, designed to raise the awareness of its participants to the sonic components of their environments. While Schafer and the WSP make a clear distinction between these two terms, they are now commonly used interchangeably. Michael Southworth (1969) also used listening walks in his study of the sonic environment of Boston. By comparing the experience of three participants, (the first being blindfolded, the second wearing earplugs while the third one had a “normal”, neutral perception), Southworth emphasised the role of auditory components in one’s appreciation of an environment and the interaction between visual and auditory stimuli.

A last tool described and used by the WSP is the sound diary, a personal journal kept by each researcher which records their various thoughts on sound experiences, particular moments, emotions or stories. “The sound diary, and its companion piece, the soundwalk, are easy to compile, and by directing attention to a sense often ignored they can be useful educational experiences for everyone” (Schafer, 1977a, p. 1). Not only does a diary provide an insight in the researcher’s personal experience, but it also encourages self-reflection, and gives the researcher a space to connect his or her own experience to broader theoretical concerns. The WSP has published a collection of diary excerpts from the European tour, European Sound Diary, which offers the reader varied thoughts from four researchers complemented with various documents from the tour (soundwalks, graphs, maps…) (Schafer, 1977a).

The European methodology presented in Amphoux’s The Sonic Identity of European Cities (1993a, 1993b) presents several techniques to collect various comments, opinions and perceptions from local and foreign listeners. Many of these are designed to facilitate the expression of an acoustic culture, local significations which are often treated unconsciously by inhabitants and which must therefore be “triggered”. Four important components of this methodology will be integrated into our current project, based on their complementarity to the WSP’s techniques previously discussed and their applicability to the smaller scale of the present case study (a district, rather than a whole city).

The initial step of the methodology is to quickly gather general information about the city (or the district) that will allow researchers to produce a list of potential locations. What is important here is to reach a variety of inhabitants and appeal to their sonic memory in various ways. Sonic mind maps have been proposed as a relatively simple and efficient technique to collect such information (Amphoux, 1991; Hellström, 2003). Mind maps have been previously used in various disciplines such as geography and psychology to study people’s relationship to their environment. A sonic mind map is a map that one draws of his or her city (in our case district); it can include sound sources, particular locations, streets and buildings, urban routes and daily routines, etc. The goal here is to force a “change of logic” (Amphoux, 1993a, p. 11; my translation) and trigger an altered appreciation and description of one’s sound environment. Each session can be done on an individual basis, and should not take more than 15 minutes (Amphoux, 1993a).

Once a sufficient number of maps have been gathered, analysed and compared, researchers can start listing potential sites for further analysis and recording, while compiling general information about the city and its daily perception. The second technique involving sonic memory is the phono-reputational inquiry (Amphoux, 1991; Hellström, 2003), a series of recorded interviews with people who have a particular relation to their city and/or sound environment (being either a “user” of the city, e.g. street musician, home worker, mailperson, or else being situated on the “representational” level of the city, e.g. journalist, writer, historian, town planner…). These open group interviews should cover three main topics: the enumeration and discussion of various locations that present particular sonic qualities, soundmarks and other sonic signatures of the city, and finally a more elaborate discussion of the various criteria of acoustic quality which appear important to the interviewees. Researchers can make use of appropriate sonic mind maps to feed the discussion and trigger comments (Amphoux, 1991, 1993a).

The second section of the methodology comprises two main components, the recording of chosen locations and the presentation of resulting audio clips in reactivated listening sessions. Amphoux (1991, 1993a) provides very specific guidelines in terms of the pre-production work to be accomplished, as well as the modalities of recording and montage. Synoptic forms (Hellström, 2003) provide, in the same way as the WSP’s information cards, contextual details about each location. These cards will however be produced before the recording sessions, based on previous interviews, to provide recording technicians with enough information to produce an audio document that represents, or include features that have been indicated by interviewees. The synoptic forms include the location of the recording, an overview of the background, ambience and signals to be heard, an intention, that is, a basic hypothesis of the qualitative criteria of the location to guide the recording, and finally various information concerning the appropriate schedules to record specific sounds or ambiences, or other pertinent details (see Amphoux, 1993a, p. 20; Hellström, 2003, p.154).

Reactivated listening sessions have been initiated at CRESSON by Jean-François Augoyard in 1979, inspired by the observation techniques developed at the Palo Alto School (Amphoux, 1991). This technique consists in the presentation of audio recordings of specific environments to various listeners, in a way to trigger various comments, memories and discussions concerning the recognition (or not) of the location, its assessment, etc. Here, the listener in placed in a schizophonic situation, the technique introducing a distance between one’s everyday environment and its reactivated perception through loudspeakers or headphones. This, according to Amphoux, allows the “reactivation of a listening in ordinary contexts, as it is experienced in one’s everyday” as well as a “reaction to the listening linked to the gap between the real and its recorded representation” (1991, p. 58; my translation). Chris J. Smith (1993) has also used a similar technique in his exploration of three residential neighbourhoods of Vancouver.

These sessions should involve either actual inhabitants of the city, who will be able to comment as “local but non-specialised listeners” (1993a, p. 26; my translation), or specialists in various disciplines related to sound who are not necessarily living in the studied environment. The individual interviews should keep an open format, with about ten clips presented per session through loudspeakers (to allow the researcher to hear the particular elements that may trigger reactions (1991, 1993a). Information from each sequence heard is tabulated on a chart of sequential analysis which includes the profile of the interviewee, expectations of the researcher concerning the interpretation of the sequence, a condensed transcription, particular expressions used, a free interpretation of the interview by the researcher and an actualisation of the previous hypothesis (see Amphoux, 1993a, p. 30).

3.1.2 Examples of Application of the Methodology

The WSP’s approach to the sound environment emphasised the necessity for researchers to accomplish field observations and analysis. Soundscape studies, according to the WSP, should not be a discipline confined to laboratories, studios or university classes; it must have its basis in the everyday acoustic communities, where the unfolding soundscape remains unnoticed.
The first field of research of the WSP was the region in which it was located: Greater Vancouver. Archival research, recordings, interviews and measurements led to the publication of The Vancouver Soundscape (whose first edition was published in 1974), which describes the historical evolution of the soundscape of Vancouver, and its recent transition from hi-fi to lo-fi. This first important project allowed the team to describe and present their developing concepts, and the way in which these can be used practically to analyse and assess a particular sound environment. The accompanying recordings complemented the texts with audio examples including natural sounds, signals and soundmarks of Vancouver.

The main theme of the Vancouver Soundscape, that is, the decreasing quality of urban spaces attributed to the increased presence of industrial and electric technologies, will be returned to in later studies and publications. “We must return to the Vancouver soundscape the flavour of its original elements – cataracts, swift flowing waters and ocean waves, the inimitable sound of wind in evergreen trees, and the natural resonance of wood, shell and stone. That will be our task” (Schafer, 1978, p. 66). But the romanticism of Schafer’s view and the numerous technophobic references found in the publication have not gone unnoticed. For Torigoe (1982), the “biased view of modern technology in the aesthetic, and even moral, sense might be the reason that prevents the Project from involving itself actively enough in the actual alteration and creation of soundscape” (p. 164).
In 1973, two members of the WSP, Bruce Davis and Peter Huse, completed a cross-Canada tour in which they gathered an extensive amount of recordings, measurements and notes covering the whole country (Davis & Huse, 1974). The goal of this field recording tour was to extend the study of the sound environment to the national level, while recording disappearing sounds, regional or local keynotes, important signals etc. The study itself has not been published, but it has been incorporated into a 1974 CBC radio series, Soundscapes of Canada. While most of the ten programs were independent compositions produced by different members of the team, some of them focused more specifically on features of the Canadian soundscape (notably programs 3, 4 and 6), and in many cases the sounds recorded by Davis and Huse were used compositionally (see Torigoe, 1982; Truax, 1996b).

The most extensive project accomplished by the WSP remains the five European villages tour. In 1975, five researchers visited five small towns, each in a different country, over a period of five months. They stayed in each location for seven to ten days, gathering as much information as possible concerning the acoustic history and present state of each town (Schafer, 1977b). The villages were chosen to present similar features (self-contained towns, less than 3000 inhabitants, important social life, distinctive sound signals, etc.); they were preferred to larger cities, since, according to Schafer, “the prospect of arriving at intelligent conclusions regarding the complex soundscapes of cities in the brief time at [their] disposal would have been quite impossible” (p. 1). The five villages studied were Skruv in Sweden, Bissingen in Germany, Cembra in Italy, Lesconil in France and Dollar in Scotland.

The results of this extensive field study were published in two different books, Five Village Soundscapes (1977b) and European Sound Diary (1977a). The first book presents a summary of the study, including maps, graphs, results from the Sound Preference Tests and an extended interview with the former town clerk of Dollar, David Graham. Again, recordings were also included to illustrate results of the tour while presenting audio examples of the sounds and soundscapes heard in each village. The second book, on the other hand, is a compilation of sound journal excerpts written by four of the researchers throughout their trip, and accompanied with various graphs, pictures and a series of soundwalks. This second publication can be seen as an attempt to present a different account of the tour by providing the reader with insights from the researchers’ experiences, while illustrating the usefulness of sound diaries for sound education.

A later attempt to document the sound environment of Chemainus, a small town on Vancouver Island in B.C., was not completed because of a lack of financial support (Truax, 1996a). The Five Village Soundscapes (1977b) can therefore be seen as the final methodological development of the WSP. The fact that the group could only spend about a week in each location made it necessary to design a clear and defined working method; if we add to this the previous field experience of members and the growing vocabulary and conceptual tools available, this makes the Five Village Soundscape an extremely rich source of information, not only about the changing sound environment of each village but also about the different ways available to obtain information and classify historical, social, economic and sonic data. Furthermore, “the introduction of a comparative perspective using five different types of villages required the research team to develop a more systematic method of collecting data” (Torigoe, 1982, p. 190). This results notably in the extensive use of comparative graphs, and a better understanding of the complex dynamics between the main economic or social institutions of a village and the main sonic attributes of the location.

The sonic identity methodology has been developed and tested through a large comparative study of three Swiss cities in 1991, and whose results were published in Aux Écoutes de la Ville [Listening to the City] (Amphoux, 1991). The team, a collaboration between CRESSON and IREC, applied the developed techniques to Lausanne, Locarno and Zürich. This theoretical and methodological challenge was inscribed in the process of the “constitution of a European research network on the sonic quality of inhabited spaces” (p. 8; my translation) initiated by the CRESSON. The extensive study also led to the publication of a methodological guide aimed at city planners, sound technicians and social science researchers, L’Identité Sonore des Villes Européennes [The Sonic Identity of European Cities] (Amphoux, 1993a, 1993b). This 2-volume guideline provides a brief but clear introduction to the methodology designed by the CRESSON and the IREC, and provides research insights to support further comparative studies, in Europe or elsewhere. The first volume consists in the survey of the three-step methodological process, while the second volume is a repertoire of concepts, including the extensive list of qualitative criteria and a brief, summarised listing of the sound effects, also used in Amphoux’s approach.

Another team of Spanish researchers has also used this methodology to discuss the issue of noise pollution and subjective reactions to sound in inhabited spaces (Barrio & Carles, 1995). Sonic mind maps and reactivated listening were notably used by the Psychoacoustics Laboratory at the Instituto de Acústica in Madrid to explore the various ways in which environments are subjectively identified and assessed, and to describe the particular sonic identities of the city. While this particular project did not involve an inter-city comparison, it used qualitative techniques as complements to the traditional noise study approach, and initiated an “ever-expanding sound archive which houses varied materials reflecting the traditional activities carried out throughout Spain” (Barrio & Carles, 1995, p. 6) The Laboratory has continued its collaboration with the CRESSON in a joint project on the qualitative analysis of inhabited spaces.

Björn Hellström has also used the concept of sound effect and the methodology designed by Amphoux in a study of the district of Klara, in Stockholm (Hellström, 2003). The Tourist Information Guide to Environmental Resonance (TIGER) project was presented from 1996 to 1998, as a multimedia exhibition which presents the results of an in situ study of the district based on specific sound effects and the use of an environmental listening approach (E) as defined by Amphoux. In the exhibition, nine locations were explored visually and graphically. This project was then incorporated in Hellström’s doctoral dissertation, Noise Design: Architectural Modelling and the Aesthetics of Urban Acoustic Space (2003).