CHALLENGE

Urban planning and spatial design too often overlook the sonic affective dimensions of sites and landscapes, treating them dominantly as noise issues. The quality of the sonic environment, beyond decibel levels, integrates social life, personal well-being, and ecological challenges such as climate change and biodiversity. To neglect this is to miss the opportunity of cultivating sonic spaces as sonic habitats that support ecological and social resilience.

APPROACH

LUW’s Plan-as-Score is an art and data-driven planning research service that studies how urban planning and design scenarios shape the sensory dimensions of public life. It evaluates their impact on the quality of sonic space, lived sonic experience, and overall project quality, enabling interdisciplinary teams to create human-scale, socially and ecologically resilient urban environments.

OUTCOME

LUW’s Plan as Score delivers a Decision Note with analysis, recommendations, and design guidelines to optimize sonic space quality, urban project quality, and social and ecological resilience.

APPLICATIONS

Applications include urban redevelopment to assess scenario impacts on sonic space quality, public space design to analyze sonic affective dimensions and their relation to social life, and policy development to integrate sonic habitats into planning frameworks.

SERVICE DETAILS

LUW’s Plan-as-Score runs for 4–6 weeks, adapted to project scope, with pricing available on request. Deliverables include a Decision Note, Scenario Sheets, Option Matrix, and Field Score (QGIS).

MODULAR WORKFLOW

Plan as Score can be combined with Sound Walk for engagement and Sonic UX Scan for analysis to create a comprehensive sonic urbanism approach.