The Role of Façades in the Composition of Urban Soundscapes

Alvaro Balderrama; Alessandra Luna-Navarro; Jian Kang

doi:10.1007/978-981-97-8317-5_58

The Role of Façades in the Composition of Urban Soundscapes

Alvaro Balderrama^*, Alessandra Luna-Navarro, Jian Kang

^*Corresponding author for this work

Building Design & Technology

Research output: Chapter in Book/Conference proceedings/Edited volume › Conference contribution › Scientific › peer-review

Abstract

As cities continue to expand and densify, understanding how buildings affect people’s perception and experience of the acoustic environment in context becomes more relevant. This paper presents a conceptual framework of the influence of façades on the urban soundscape, based on the ISO 12913 series, in order to analyze the three main elements of the soundscape: people, acoustic environment and context, along with façade as a fourth element. The methodology included literature review, as well as an exploration of the ISO 12913 methods for soundscape assessment via soundwalks and laboratory experiments involving a total of forty-three (n = 43) participants. The results provide a promising framework for façade analysis to progress toward the integration of human-centered approaches into the field of façade acoustics and complement current building physics practice.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Multiphysics and Multiscale Building Physics
Subtitle of host publication	Proceedings of the 9th International Building Physics Conference (IBPC 2024) Volume 4: Indoor Air Quality (IAQ), Lighting and Acoustics
Editors	Umberto Berardi
Place of Publication	Singapore
Publisher	Springer
Pages	399-404
Number of pages	6
ISBN (Electronic)	978-981-97-8317-5
ISBN (Print)	978-981-97-8316-8, 978-981-97-8319-9
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-8317-5_58
Publication status	Published - 2025
Event	9th International Building Physics Conference, IBPC 2024 - Toronto, Canada Duration: 25 Jul 2024 → 27 Jul 2024

Publication series

Name	Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering
Publisher	Springer
Volume	555 LNCE
ISSN (Print)	2366-2557
ISSN (Electronic)	2366-2565

Conference

Conference	9th International Building Physics Conference, IBPC 2024
Country/Territory	Canada
City	Toronto
Period	25/07/24 → 27/07/24

Bibliographical note

Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care
Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.

Keywords

Acoustics
Comfort
Noise
Perception
Soundscape
Sustainability

Access to Document

10.1007/978-981-97-8317-5_58

Cite this

Balderrama, A., Luna-Navarro, A., & Kang, J. (2025). The Role of Façades in the Composition of Urban Soundscapes. In U. Berardi (Ed.), Multiphysics and Multiscale Building Physics: Proceedings of the 9th International Building Physics Conference (IBPC 2024) Volume 4: Indoor Air Quality (IAQ), Lighting and Acoustics (pp. 399-404). (Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering; Vol. 555 LNCE). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-8317-5_58

Balderrama, Alvaro ; Luna-Navarro, Alessandra ; Kang, Jian. / The Role of Façades in the Composition of Urban Soundscapes. Multiphysics and Multiscale Building Physics: Proceedings of the 9th International Building Physics Conference (IBPC 2024) Volume 4: Indoor Air Quality (IAQ), Lighting and Acoustics. editor / Umberto Berardi. Singapore : Springer, 2025. pp. 399-404 (Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering).

@inproceedings{ea55f5db4cea443e954ade8bdd5e3ecc,

title = "The Role of Fa{\c c}ades in the Composition of Urban Soundscapes",

abstract = "As cities continue to expand and densify, understanding how buildings affect people{\textquoteright}s perception and experience of the acoustic environment in context becomes more relevant. This paper presents a conceptual framework of the influence of fa{\c c}ades on the urban soundscape, based on the ISO 12913 series, in order to analyze the three main elements of the soundscape: people, acoustic environment and context, along with fa{\c c}ade as a fourth element. The methodology included literature review, as well as an exploration of the ISO 12913 methods for soundscape assessment via soundwalks and laboratory experiments involving a total of forty-three (n = 43) participants. The results provide a promising framework for fa{\c c}ade analysis to progress toward the integration of human-centered approaches into the field of fa{\c c}ade acoustics and complement current building physics practice.",

keywords = "Acoustics, Comfort, Noise, Perception, Soundscape, Sustainability",

author = "Alvaro Balderrama and Alessandra Luna-Navarro and Jian Kang",

note = "Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.; 9th International Building Physics Conference, IBPC 2024 ; Conference date: 25-07-2024 Through 27-07-2024",

year = "2025",

doi = "10.1007/978-981-97-8317-5_58",

language = "English",

isbn = "978-981-97-8316-8",

series = "Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering",

publisher = "Springer",

pages = "399--404",

editor = "Umberto Berardi",

booktitle = "Multiphysics and Multiscale Building Physics",

}

Balderrama, A , Luna-Navarro, A & Kang, J 2025, The Role of Façades in the Composition of Urban Soundscapes. in U Berardi (ed.), Multiphysics and Multiscale Building Physics: Proceedings of the 9th International Building Physics Conference (IBPC 2024) Volume 4: Indoor Air Quality (IAQ), Lighting and Acoustics. Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering, vol. 555 LNCE, Springer, Singapore, pp. 399-404, 9th International Building Physics Conference, IBPC 2024, Toronto, Canada, 25/07/24. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-8317-5_58

The Role of Façades in the Composition of Urban Soundscapes. / Balderrama, Alvaro ; Luna-Navarro, Alessandra; Kang, Jian.
Multiphysics and Multiscale Building Physics: Proceedings of the 9th International Building Physics Conference (IBPC 2024) Volume 4: Indoor Air Quality (IAQ), Lighting and Acoustics. ed. / Umberto Berardi. Singapore: Springer, 2025. p. 399-404 (Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering; Vol. 555 LNCE).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Conference proceedings/Edited volume › Conference contribution › Scientific › peer-review

TY - GEN

T1 - The Role of Façades in the Composition of Urban Soundscapes

AU - Balderrama, Alvaro

AU - Luna-Navarro, Alessandra

AU - Kang, Jian

N1 - Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.

PY - 2025

Y1 - 2025

N2 - As cities continue to expand and densify, understanding how buildings affect people’s perception and experience of the acoustic environment in context becomes more relevant. This paper presents a conceptual framework of the influence of façades on the urban soundscape, based on the ISO 12913 series, in order to analyze the three main elements of the soundscape: people, acoustic environment and context, along with façade as a fourth element. The methodology included literature review, as well as an exploration of the ISO 12913 methods for soundscape assessment via soundwalks and laboratory experiments involving a total of forty-three (n = 43) participants. The results provide a promising framework for façade analysis to progress toward the integration of human-centered approaches into the field of façade acoustics and complement current building physics practice.

AB - As cities continue to expand and densify, understanding how buildings affect people’s perception and experience of the acoustic environment in context becomes more relevant. This paper presents a conceptual framework of the influence of façades on the urban soundscape, based on the ISO 12913 series, in order to analyze the three main elements of the soundscape: people, acoustic environment and context, along with façade as a fourth element. The methodology included literature review, as well as an exploration of the ISO 12913 methods for soundscape assessment via soundwalks and laboratory experiments involving a total of forty-three (n = 43) participants. The results provide a promising framework for façade analysis to progress toward the integration of human-centered approaches into the field of façade acoustics and complement current building physics practice.

KW - Acoustics

KW - Comfort

KW - Noise

KW - Perception

KW - Soundscape

KW - Sustainability

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85214135748&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/978-981-97-8317-5_58

DO - 10.1007/978-981-97-8317-5_58

M3 - Conference contribution

SN - 978-981-97-8316-8

SN - 978-981-97-8319-9

T3 - Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering

SP - 399

EP - 404

BT - Multiphysics and Multiscale Building Physics

A2 - Berardi, Umberto

PB - Springer

CY - Singapore

T2 - 9th International Building Physics Conference, IBPC 2024

Y2 - 25 July 2024 through 27 July 2024

ER -

Balderrama A , Luna-Navarro A, Kang J. The Role of Façades in the Composition of Urban Soundscapes. In Berardi U, editor, Multiphysics and Multiscale Building Physics: Proceedings of the 9th International Building Physics Conference (IBPC 2024) Volume 4: Indoor Air Quality (IAQ), Lighting and Acoustics. Singapore: Springer. 2025. p. 399-404. (Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering). doi: 10.1007/978-981-97-8317-5_58

The Role of Façades in the Composition of Urban Soundscapes

Abstract

Publication series

Conference

Bibliographical note

Keywords

Access to Document

Other files and links

Embargoed Document

Fingerprint

Cite this