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Thesis Info
- LABS ID
- 00815
- Thesis Title
- Aural Architecture Practice: Creative Approaches for an Ecology of Affect
- Author
- Claudia Martinho
- E-mail
- c.martinho AT gold.ac.uk
- 2nd Author
- 3rd Author
- Degree
- PhD
- Year
- 2019
- Number of Pages
- 226
- University
- Goldsmiths, University of London
- Thesis Supervisor
- Professor John Levack Drever
- Supervisor e-mail
- J.Drever AT gold.ac.uk
- Other Supervisor(s)
- Dr Iris Garrelfs
- Language(s) of Thesis
- English UK
- Department / Discipline
- Department of Music, Unit for Sound Practice Research / Sonic Arts
- Copyright Ownership
- Claudia Martinho
- Languages Familiar to Author
- Portuguese, English, French, Spanish
- URL where full thesis can be found
- research.gold.ac.uk/26374/
- Keywords
- Aural Architecture, Sound, Space, Soundscape, Acoustic Ecology, Field recording, Environmental sound, Acoustics, Spatialisation, Site, Experience, Sensory, Resonance, Attunement, Affect, Ambiance, Vibrational forces, Field, Geometry, Synergetics, Symbiosi
- Abstract: 200-500 words
- While the acoustic environment and urban soundscapes shape our everyday
life, architecture practice usually neglects the experience of acoustic space in its
design process. My research addressed the challenge of integrating spatial
acoustics and the experience of environmental sound in architecture practice.
Drawing from acoustic ecology, creative approaches embody the aural
experience of the environment into the design process of architecture. The
research was guided by my explorations of a site-oriented aural architecture
practice, to create unusual encounters and connections between human and
non-human beings, for their relationship through the acoustic space. It
experimented with the physical experience of vibrational forces in environmental
sound, enhanced by acoustic resonance.
The research was carried out by the creation of four artworks, employed as
practical case studies, to experiment with concepts such as: resonant
soundscape, space as resonator (Vibrational Fields), space as a dynamic
relation (Radio Sonores), soundscape for attunement (Shores) and space as
energetic geometry (Passage). The artworks were used to develop sets of
design methods to draw an aural architecture intervention. The first set guides
the experience of site through context analysis, participation, soundwalking,
field recording and sensory variation, for a transformation of the ambiance
dynamic, to accentuate differences and multiple relationships. The second set
offers different approaches in designing aural architecture through the
recomposition of urban soundscape and architectural agency based in
resonance, dynamic relation and energetic geometry, for an operation of
translation. The third set concerns the acoustic spatialisation of vibrational
forces, to open communication channels and symbiotic relationships, for an
operation of attunement. My research explored the enhancement of an innate
capacity of attunement (Morton 2014) to self and other beings (human, nonhuman).
It resulted in the creation of a diversity of experiences of environmental
sound, as a way to foster an ecology of affect.