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THE BREATH OF BERLIN
ALAR 8010
Instructor: Bradley Cantrel, Michael Lee



THE BREATH OF BERLIN


Berlin, Germany





Soundscape of Berlin



While studying the soundscape of Berlin, I took a different lens to observe the city, citizens, and environment. Unlike images that can mislead people's comprehension by playing with the concept of perspective, sound recordings can always reveal the reality of what was happening. But it can also be so surrealistic and imaginative as long as I tried not to relate it to specific scenes.

In general, the footsteps of people are the most intriguing part of the experience. According to those footsteps of human, animals, plants, and even traffic, I could differentiate the status of their owners and define the scene.

With somewhat of an understanding of soundscape in Berlin, I made this video to represent my overall aural experience in the city. Water and train are two symbols of Berlin, which can be heard in nearly every corner of Berlin, and in different venues, they serve as different acoustic identities. And footstep is another interesting factor, which can help to interpret time, space, and weather, even with your eyes closed.





Soundscape Study in Berlin








After a series of sound studies of Berlin, I found a fairly intriguing place. At the intersection of Spree and Monbijou Park, there is another park called James-Simon Park, which had been neglected by me even while I was just right next to it.

The park is surrounded by Monbijou Park, Spree River, and traffic lanes, which preserves its quietness against the city but meanwhile declines the likelihood of people entering the space. So seeking a way to open the space while maintaining its own identity is the next task.




With train tracks running above, James-Simon Park experiences unceasing traffic sounds. But under the long-term devastation of traffic noise, everyone seems to just ignore the such sound, which eliminates people's awareness of its negative impact, physically and psychologically. Having such thoughts in mind, I decided to use this park as the site of this project and try to find a way to manipulate traffic noise in a positive way that can help arouse people's awareness of environmental noise and diversify people's daily life in Berlin.



Reversing the Identity of Train

Strategy of utilizing noise/sound of trains into architectural design


                                      Step 1: Sound Pattern Study of Train at Hackescher Market Station
Modern technology helps a lot in visualizing sound into something easier to analyze. According to the graphic of the frequency spectrum of a train, an overall impression of a train's sound is a construction of multiple layers of sound pieces: the train's friction with the track, air, and engine's generation, and each of them starts at slightly different time nodes. 

So rather than extracting one identical sound of a train, considering the sounds of a train as a whole is a more applicable way to conduct further design.
After studying and deep listening to sounds of train, the idea turning it into a musical instrument came to my mind.

My intuition was that trains could be a metronome for music since they follow a very strict schedule. However, the schedules themselves do not strictly follow 10-min or 20-min intervals, and there are multiple trains coming within a few minutes, so rather than consider trains as metronome, the overall construction can be regarded as a perfect string instrument that offers opening chord for a song.

                                       Step 2: Retuning Sound of Train 
With the chord concept in mind, a whole system to make this happen has emerged. In the light of electronic music, every source is a signal that can be edited in varied ways, which can be done in the same manner in retuning the train's sounds. 

A train can be sensed in multiple perspectives: load (wind, snow, and rain load indicating the weather and interior load indicating volume of passengers), speed, intervals of each train... And each of them would contribute to a parameter of manipulating the train's sounds that would be recorded and amplified under the track and above the canopy.

Those signals are not utilized by musicians inside the park solely. Everyone inside the park can be the operator of the current texture of the train's sounds, and the signals can be accessed online so everyone can adapt them for their private use.

                                       Step 3: Retuning Sound of Train