Thousands of books spanned from sidewalk to sidewalk in Ann Arbor’s Literature vs Traffic installation, creating a space for quiet reflection on the value of pedestrian-friendly public spaces and the absence of noise pollution. The intersection of Liberty and State, a major juncture in this college town, was closed down for a day and night to allow the work to be deployed and enjoyed.

Volunteers attached small lights to the books, which were gifted back out to the community when the project was wrapped up — visitors were encouraged to take books with them when they left, leaving the streets clean and empty by midnight.

Luzinterruptus is a Spanish design collective that is traveling the world, collecting volumes in each location for these city-specific installations. The proximity to Motor City was particularly apt in this case, too.

“We want literature to take over the streets and to become the conqueror of all public places, offering passersby a traffic-free area that will, for a few hours, surrender to the humble might of the written word,” explain the designers. “Thus, a place in the city usually dedicated to speed, pollution, and noise, shall turn, for one night, into a place of peace, quiet, and coexistence, lighted by the soft dim light issued from the book pages.”

As workers become increasingly packed in modern, open-plan offices and coworking spaces, designers keep working on high-tech solutions to allow employees to focus, often with the unintended effect of highlighting office layout shortcomings.

The latest of these gadget-based solutions is a set of “blinkers” from Panasonic’s “Future Life Factory,” designed to block out sights and sounds from the wearer’s sides so they can hone in on what’s in front of them.

These Wear Space units, they believe, will help keep work environments distraction-free. They were created in collaboration with Japanese fashion designer Kunihiko Morinaga. Somehow, though, the photographs just reinforce a sense of dread, with humans arrayed in front of small screens like captured cattle. But who knows: maybe they will prove useful barring other spatial redesigns.

“As open offices and digital nomads are on the rise, workers are finding it ever more important to have personal space where they can focus,” said the company. “Wear Space instantly creates this kind of personal space – it’s as simple as putting on an article of clothing.” The user can then adjust their field of view and reduce peripheral vision to desired levels. This is coupled with noise-cancelling technology for audio isolation. Of course, no such potentially dystopian, present-day design would be complete without a crowdfunding campaign, currently scheduled for late 2018.

Large enough for visitors to enter and sit within, three gigantic wooden megaphones constructed in the forests of Estonia amplify ambient sounds of the environment.

Nearly ten feet in diameter each, huge cones render quiet sounds of rustling leaves and birds chirping remarkably audible.

The Tõnu Tunnel installation was conceived of by interior architecture and design students from the Estonian Academy of Arts and implemented with advice from B210 Architects

Thanks to their size and shape, the megaphones double as seating and shelter as well with space enough for a few hikers to spend the night.

Each space can also be used in reverse as well by musical or other (small groups of) stage performers wishing to project sounds outward, or can double as seating for shows in the round.

Construction of the megaphones was financed by RMK and the interior architecture department of the EAA. Each was built offsite and carefully transported into place.

According to Valdur Mikita, a writer and semiotician involved in the project, “The trademark of Estonia is both the abundance of sounds in our forest as well as the silence there. In the megaphones, thoughts can be heard. It is a place for browsing the ‘book of nature,’ for listening to and reading the forest through sound.” 

With these earbuds, you can do anything from turning down the volume on crying babies, snoring spouses and passing sirens to tuning your own mix of bass, mids and trebles at a live concert in real time. If this description sounds like a bionic hearing device of the distant future, guess again: all of these benefits are being packed by Doppler Labs into a portable pair of well-funded wireless devices already in development.

Starting with the simplest features of Here: users can turn up or down everyday sounds – basically a volume knob for ordinary acoustics all around. But it gets better: using machine learning and customizable inputs tied to your smart device, Here can also filter out specific soundwaves in real time, cancelling out unwanted sounds instead of replacing them with white noise or other filler.

Beyond this baseline feature set, however, things start to get really interesting, with audiophile-oriented features that let you add or subtract everything from treble and bass to reverbs and echoes, letting you personalize all kinds of soundscapes, from background music at bars and elevator Muzak at work to live concert performances. Users can employ presets or customize their experience on the fly then save favorite settings for later, and fans will undoubtedly begin remixing acoustics in unexpected situations, creating custom soundtracks out of walks through parks.

Like many wearables, these “hearables” are controllable from your favorite smart device and thus require little onboard processing power, resulting in more extended battery life – the buds are then recharged in a portable case. Doppler has already raised thousands via Kickstarter and millions more via tech and music company investors. Some of this money will be put toward hardware but much of which will be used to further refine their algorithms and give users ever-more-custom audio control over their everyday auditory experiences.

From their fundraising campaign: “Through two truly wireless, in-ear buds and a smartphone app, Here allows you to instantly control real world audio so you can hear what you want to hear – no matter the situation – and be fully immersed in your audio environment. Here does not stream or play recorded music. Instead, the Digital Signal Processor (DSP) inside Here acts as a studio in your ears by providing you with a volume knob, equalizer and effects to transform real world audio. Use this ‘remote control for your ears’ to have an optimal listening experience every time.”

These artistic acoustic highway noise barriers combine form with function, neatly blocking the sound of road traffic while looking darned good in the process.

This proposal for an environmentally-friendly acoustic barrier (“Forest Corridor”) in Hong Kong was designed by Bread Studio to meet three strict conditions: masking the sight of the highway from nearby residential buildings, improving the view of the highway’s underside for people in the park below, and relieving drivers from any claustrophobic impressions as they cruise through the de facto tunnel.

Leapin’ Lizards!

Stretching for six miles along both sides of the Pima Freeway’s sound barrier wall in Scottsdale, AZ, “The Path Most Traveled” by artist Carolyn Braaksma evokes the essential nature of the region’s desert ecosystem.

Interspersed among a mix of abstract and Native American-style motifs are prickly pear cacti standing up to 40 feet tall and enormous lizards almost 70 feet long.

Clearly Beautiful

Melbourne’s freeway network is the largest of any Australian city, and without sound barriers the aural impact on residential neighborhoods would be substantial. Cheap and unimaginative acoustic walls would also have a detrimental effect on drivers so a pleasing compromise was achieved that satisfied both.

Tinted acrylic plastic panels set into sound walls along the EastLink Freeway maintain audio insulation while adding visual interest at a reasonable cost. Want to see the world through rose-colored sound barriers? Get your eyes to Australia!

“Sixty Seconds of Architecture”

Louwman Exclusive Cars is a high-end exotic automobile dealer located in Utrecht, the Netherlands, just off the A2 highway between Amsterdam and Maastricht. Instead of making do with a bland and boring sound wall, the dealership opted instead for an acoustic barrier “designed from the perspective of a flow of cars passing by with the speed of 120 km/h.” Fast company indeed.

Stretching 1.5 kilometers in length, the 5,500,000-euro barrier designed by Kas Oosterhuis widens to a 30m “cockpit” that accommodates the auto dealer’s showroom and service bays. No doubt it’s quite quiet inside as well.

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