Soundscape Design of Motorway Parkland Environments – Transformation, Cancellation, and Ethnography

This paper reports on a practice-led research project investigating the design of parkland soundscapes affected by motorway noise. The project, entitled Acoustic design innovations for managing traffic noise by cancellation and transformation, is funded by the Transurban Innovation Grant. Transurban is a transport infrastructure company operating in Australia and the USA that builds and manages tolled motorways. Car-dependent cities require extensive road networks, and traffic noise can impact those who live adjacent to motorways. We have based our project on three approaches – Cancellation, Transformation, and Ethnography. Since the writing of the paper, research was tested along the M2 motorway in Sydney and the Citylink in Melbourne. Future papers, and an industry report will compare the newly designed environments with community perceptions, to reveal new noise management approaches that infrastructure companies can incorporate in their planning and design phases. This paper draws on early fieldwork and laboratory tests, including descriptions of the three methodologies involved and some preliminary observations.