Context The office seeks to mobilize the complex notion of noise not as an episodic condition in the built environment but as a new form of texture that distinguishes one place from another. Noise, as a sound emission from anthropogenic sources and activities, is an event that is monitored, regulated, and controlled from municipality to multi-national levels. sound-office strives to understand the complex issue: of noise mitigation and thus design strategies that tend to homogenize our surroundings' sounds.

Urgency As our cityscapes become ‘smart cities’, municipalities observe noise pollution mostly through their decibel output. Hyper-fixated systems measure the disturbance and loudness of events, known as noise. The technical quantification of noise can easily dismiss how our emotional systems are affected by such sounds and leaves out participation of city dwellers. sound-office analyzes these sound events and thinks of them not as a problem but as a creative resource to understand the sonic particularities of the built environment or landscape.

How and Why sound-office bridges the links between the development of sound policy, soundscape studies, and sound art practices to generate different ways to engage people's relationships with their soundscape. The office seeks to create projects where technicians and artists bring their fields together to utilize and share their knowledge as flourishing examples of how we can better our world's sound design. Through hands-on workshops, projects and publications the office will stimulate engagement and agency with our sonic environment to the users among humans, animals and other species that make up for the city’s soundscape. These kinds of collaborations produce change in diverse fields relating to sound and question how we stereotype sounds as noise and thus deepen our understanding of our sonic emissions. The office brings these initiatives at the ground level to engage with city users. Through hands-on workshops, projects and publications the office will stimulate more engagement with our local sonic environment to the users among humans, animals and other species that make up for the city’s auditory soundscape.

Archive of Abatemnt
The archive compiles designed interventions in a city landscape that regulate, mitigate and transform sounds.

All-Species Sonic Unit
The unit gives a historical account of quantification and systems of sound, moving the needle from the imperialist-human tendencies to an interspecies practice on sonic culture.

Transitional Emissions
The exploration exposes the sounds of green energy transitions to unveil their sonic paradoxes.