Survey on Soundscape of Valiasr Street in Tehran with Emphasis on a Human Perception

People experience spaces not only by seeing them but also by listening. Soundscape is mainly related to forming a mental image of the living environment, including culture and personal past experience. The components of the sonic environment need to be identified and meanings should be attributed to them. The idea of soundscape refers to both the natural acoustic environment, consisting of natural sounds, including animal vocalizations and, for instance, the sounds of weather and other natural elements; and environmental sounds created by humans, through musical composition, sound design, and other ordinary human activities including conversation, work; and sounds of mechanical origin resulting from use of industrial technology. The disruption of these acoustic environments results in noise pollution. Every urban area has its own soundscape. It can be stated that soundscape is a significant contribution in the environmental quality. Each city may have a rather unique acoustic profile, the composition of specific natural sounds, signals and noise. The effects of noise pollution can cause a hearing problems, heart problems and social problems. The experiences of programming in many cities is eloquent of its inefficiencies in reducing the noise and relevant issues to soundscape of environment generally after project ending or in the best form in the last step of programming is taken to the attention. While the main goal of urban designers is to promote the quality of urban environment, but it seems at least till the end of 20th century that the main concentration has been paid on visual aspects and less attention to the audio aspects in urban atmospheres. The soundscape approach to environmental sound is a new paradigm focusing on making the urban sound climate an integral part of urban design, city planning, and architecture. The founder of the word “Soundscape”, R. Murray Schafer, coined the term soundscape and emphasized the importance of identifying pleasant sounds and using them to create healthier environments. He described how to classify sounds, appreciating their beauty or ugliness, and offered exercises (e.g. ‘soundwalks’) to help people become more sensitive to sounds. The dynamic sound perspectives in the urban environment, such as sonic diversity and acoustic ecology, are still very much neglected aspects in planning and architectural design. We are all in general largely unaware of the importance of sounds for how we perceive the quality of a place and a good living environment. Whenever urban sound is on the agenda, the topic is primarily noise abatement and legislation to reduce noise. While the designers create the places with new activities through space designing they can play roll in optimizing the soundscape. Noise Pollution is one of the current problems in cities including Tehran, which has harmful effects on people’s physical and mental health in the society. Some countries have adopted legal measures to control and eliminate the noise pollution. Since, there is no conducted research relating to the legal status of noise pollution in Iran, a comparative analysis of the laws and regulations of Iran and a few selected countries can be helpful for finding the shortcomings of the pollution control in Iran and Tehran. Valiasr Street is a tree-lined street in Tehran, Iran, dividing the metropolis into western and eastern parts. It is considered one of Tehran’s main thoroughfares and commercial centers. Given the history and reputation of Valiasr Avenue in Tehran, sound of water and birds in the street was a sense of identity of it, but by passing time and vehicle increasing, soundscape of Valiasr Street totally changed and sound of vehicles and other artificial sounds dominance the soundscape and now it does not have a demanded soundscape at all. But in terms of audio quality and experience this street by listening, some concepts could try to revive the past. In this survey besides analyzing the scientist’s theories and designers about the place of soundscape in quality of urban spaces and human perception, defines the importance, place and necessity of attention to the soundscape in urban design, we study the soundscape of Valiasr street with sound walk, noise map and questionnaire methods and consequently we expanded the principles that help the design improvement. We will elaborate a bit further on the qualitative aspects of sounds and how innovative design may contribute to acoustic environments that people perceive as enjoyable and less stressful. But the challenge of how we may create an enjoyable acoustic milieu needs to be approached in much more creative ways. In terms of audio quality and experience the city by listening, some concepts could try to revive the past.