Pascal Amphoux, Architecte DPLG, Geograph Contrepoint Projets urbains, Lausanne (Suisse), a professor at the faculty of architecture Nantes, France (Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Nantes). Freelance architect and consultant for urban planning projects (Bureau CONTREPOINT, Projets urbains, Lausanne). Research at the Centre de Recherches sur l’Espace Sonore et l’Environnement Urbain (CRESSON, Ecole d’Architecture de Grenoble, UMR CNRS).
Research carried out at the laboratory focuses on the perceptible environment, and architectural and urban atmospheres. CRESSON advocates a qualitative approach liable to help and perhaps influence design strategies and processes. After concentrating initially on the sound space, the laboratory extended the scope of its inquiries in the 1990s to include the many dimensions of in situ sensory perception. The research addresses phenomena related to light, heat, smell, touch and bodily movement. Research draws on original pluridisciplinary methods, at the meeting point between human and social science, between architecture and engineering science.
One of the results of this work is the publication “Sonic Experience. A Guide to Everyday Sounds”. The book investigates the effects of sounds on listeners. In a multidisciplinary work spanning musicology, electro-acoustic composition, architecture, urban studies, communication, phenomenology, social theory, physics, and psychology, the authors provide an alphabetical sourcebook of eighty sonic/auditory effects.Their accounts of sonic effects such as echo, anticipation, vibrato, and wha-wha integrate information about the “objective” physical spaces in which sounds occur with cultural contexts and individual auditory experience.
appearance at Tuned City
urban space and sonic experience / 03.07.2008