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Architecture’s Acoustic Shadow: Unsettling the Sound/Space Relationship
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Abstract
The acoustic signature of an architectural space conveys complex information about its geometry, materiality, tectonics, and occupation. As such, hearing is often considered to be an inherently spatial sense. However, a Vitruvian emphasis on reverberation has overlooked how sound operates transversally, moving through bodies and matter, undermining spatial division, and confounding architectural legibility. Furthermore, there exists a strong ableist bias within architectural discourse on sound, assuming a universal listening subject. How then might we account for different forms of listening in our shared soundscape? And how might a focus on material transmission, rather than reverberation, change the way space and sound are mutually conceived and experienced?
This research draws on sound studies, deaf studies, and new materialism as conceptual and ethical frameworks at three sites of sonic encounter: matter, the body, and the expanded field. The practice-based side of the research involves the construction of architectural interfaces that displace the normative human hearing range, providing alternative modes of listening to spatial environments. This includes self-resonating vibro-tactile feedback instruments, electro-magnetic induction loops, and augmented contact microphones which are used in experimental field recordings of landscapes and urban environments. These strategies inform the design of a small meditation pavilion at a Tibetan Buddhist centre in rural Austria which uses sonically-active materials to mediate between the soundscape and the body, while also negotiating the complex cosmopolitics of the site.
By attending to how different bodies, and even how different materials listen to space, this research attempts to shift the focus away from sound as a phenomenon of study toward sound as a critical method for interrogating the built environment.
Biography
Jonathan Tyrrell studied architecture at the University of Waterloo in Canada where he also taught as an adjunct professor from 2013-2020. He was an associate at Dereck Revington Studio in Toronto, where he led a series of award-winning public art projects and memorials from conception through to fabrication. Prior to this he worked extensively with Philip Beesley on the Hylozoic Series, developing specialised experience in interactive system design, digital fabrication, and component design while leading complex installations at major art festivals across North America, Europe, and Asia.
Jonathan is currently undertaking a PhD at The Bartlett School of Architecture where he is also contextual theory tutor for the Design for Manufacture MArch and Design for Performance + Interaction MArch programmes at the Bartlett School of Architecture. His doctoral research is funded by the UCL Overseas Research Scholarship, The Graduate Research Scholarship, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Image: ‘Earth Skin’ in situ during field recording experiments - Ontario, Canada, 2023 (Photo: Jonathan Tyrrell)