Designing and Engineering Soundscapes To enable Restorative Environments for Sustainable Societies (DeStress)

Mental health issues and stress is rising, with a substantial economic cost on society; in 2011, the UK Department of Health reported mental health costs of £105billion. People need time and restorative environments to help them recover from stressors and deter mental health problems. However, as reported by the World Health Organisation, increased environmental noise exposure in urban environments is having a detrimental impact on people's mental health and wellbeing. Urban sounds can at times be positively evaluated and support restoration, but little is known on how to design environments to create these positive 'soundscapes'. Although research into soundscapes and cognitive restoration is growing, there are still disconnects with applied built environment design. This project innovatively integrates these different disciplinary areas of research. It draws on the disparate existing information to create a tool to advance knowledge on the relationships between these areas, thereby providing a means to inform evidence-based designs. The aim of the project is to develop a visual soundscape simulator of urban quiet and calm areas to assist in Designing and Engineering Soundscapes To enable Restorative Environments for Sustainable Societies (DeStress).

The visual soundscape simulator (VSS) will be both informative and a methodological research instrument. Novel features of the VSS include the presentation of audio and visual stimuli, the inclusion of positive and negative sounds, the ability to adapt the scene and sound sources to represent multiple virtual built environment sites, and the mapping of soundscape health outcomes. It will provide the opportunity to determine the objective (independently measured) and subjective (self-report) health outcomes of exposure to different built environment infrastructure and their resultant soundscapes.

Project DeStress will be structured by four Work Packages (WP) to meet the aim, each producing research outcomes with long term public and social, industrial, economic, policy, and academic impact. WP1 will establish any disconnects between council and public identified quiet and calm urban areas. This will aid policy guidance for identification methods of quiet and calm areas, which currently only include sound levels and physical size. WP2 creates pre-rendered audio-visual virtual simulations of real and engineered quiet and calm urban areas, and then provides a soundscape map including typical health outcomes from those who experience such a place. This provides acoustic consultants, contractors, planners, and environmental health officers with evidence-informed design outcomes to assist with their planning decisions. Usability testing in WP3 will ensure the VSS is user-friendly with appropriate soundscape map visualisations and clear graphical interfaces to engage the public and practitioner end-users. Public accessibility of the online tool helps inform the public about the impact of urban soundscapes on their health and wellbeing. This empowers them with knowledge for campaigning for appropriate preservation of restorative soundscapes through contributing to Local Community Planning Partnerships. Finally, validation tests in WP4 of the accessible online VSS will determine the accuracy of the tool and will enable experimental research into increased understanding of the relationship between soundscapes, restoration, and the design of built environments. This will assist the development of sustainable urban healthy societies.

Potential beneficiaries of project DeStress' research outcomes include acoustic consultants (such as project partners Apex Acoustics and Sharps Redmore), public organisations (such as project partners the Noise Abatement Society), local government planners, environmental health officers, and policy makers, as well as academic researchers (see academic beneficiaries). In the longer term members of the public will benefit, through continued access to quiet and calm areas. Beneficiaries will be interested in the initial outcomes of accessing the developed tool as well as the scientific outcomes as a result of further research using the tool.

Public and Social Impact: The Case for Support highlights the health implications of environmental noise on the public; access to green areas and 'quiet sides' within residential buildings, which quiet areas provide, help reduce levels of noise annoyance and avoid noise-induced sleep deprivation. Research by the PI, and recently confirmed by other researchers, has shown the important role that soundscapes can have in creating restorative environments. These places provide cognitive, physical, and emotional recovery for people suffering from stress and fatigue, and help avoid the onset of such problems. The outcomes of this project will help the identification and preservation of candidate quiet and calm areas by city council representatives, thereby indirectly impacting on people's quality of life, health, and wellbeing. The online tool will help empower the public by raising their awareness and knowledge of the impacts of environmental sounds on their health. This knowledge can then be utilised at local Community Planning Partnerships. This directly benefits public organisations concerned with noise, such as project partners the Noise Abatement Society, whose objective "is to raise awareness of, and find solutions to, noise pollution".

Economic Impact: Poor health has a large financial cost to society. For example, estimates include European Union businesses losing £77billion a year due to depression, whilst the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work provide reports of UK work-related stress costing an estimated £7 to £10billion in 2001 and resulting in 10.4 million lost working days in 2011/2012. Restorative environments, including quiet and calm areas, help provide a refuge away from environmental or work-related stressors, thus helping to prevent fatigue, stress, and burnout. The main outcome of this project is a tool to help understand the implications of urban soundscapes on people's stress and ability to restore, with the intention of helping to maintain and provide quiet and calm areas. Project outcomes will therefore indirectly benefit businesses and the UK's economy in the long term.

Industrial Impact: In addition to the above economic impacts that industry will receive, individual acoustic consultants could directly benefit by using the developed project tool as an aid to inform clients about the value of good soundscape design and the preservation of quiet and calm areas. It will validate the importance of their work and necessary involvement in masterplanning at the early stages of new developments and increase understanding of the interaction between human-environment relationships. In the longer term, the tool will help innovation and creativity in architectural acoustics for external building products, thus helping economic growth in this market sector.

Policy Makers: An initial project outcome from this study includes the public identifying quiet and calm areas within a sample of UK cities. Current identification systems do not involve the public but as reported in the Case for Support, calls exist for including such subjective evaluations. Through comparisons of public and local council identified quiet and calm areas, policy makers can make evidence-informed decisions regarding the necessity for involving the public in future identification processes.