GREG BAKER

RECOMBINANT NARRATIVE - SYNTHETIC RECOMBINATIONS

THIS THESIS PROJECT EXPLORES NOISE AS A BYPRODUCT OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM WITHIN A LARGER FRAMEWORK OF SOUND AS (SPATIAL) TERRITORY, BOTH PUBLIC AND PRIVATE. 1. HAIRBALL + INTERACTION DESIGN + MATERIAL STUDIES Site 1 outlined the hazards of the crosswalk at the Cesar Chavez Street hairball. Program 2 showed how the relationship between a visual representation of sound on urban signage can show us how to move through a threshhold: when to pause, when to keep walking, when to enter a building. Method 2 talks about the potential of architectural materials themselves to transmit detailed acoustic signals. By combining these ideas, along with a precedent involving a series of tunnels designed to refract car noise using ACTIVE Noise CONTROL technology, a hybrid retaining wall traffic signal is in the public interest for safety and could become a new form of expanded architectural services similar to the precedent. (Brewster, Michael. Geneva By-Pass. Pamphlet Architecture 16: Architecture as a Translation of Music. Princeton 1994) 2. AQUATIC PARK + TEMPORARY INSTALLATION + ACOUSTIC SURFACES Site 2 discussed the noise issues of an animal shelter and its dog walking community surrounded by train tracks, a freeway, and its elevated off ramp. Program 1 entailed an adaptable modular structure that responded to varying site conditions to create sound, and this synthetic recombination proposes a structure of similar characteristics that can control environmental sound in response to traffic conditions. Mitigation of freeway traffic and train noise will be accomplished by using transondent tiles as described in method 3: porous and dematerialized surfaces, unique assemblies, material techniques. Deployed along the routes commonly taken to walk dogs from the animal shelter, as well as around the lot lines of the shelter that border noisy infrastructure, the transondent structure enables a more calm environment for distressed animals. 3. BAYSIDE VILLAGE + VENUE + DIGITAL TOOLS A venue with a responsive skin serves a residential area near the Bay Bridge, subject to constant light rail and traffic noise summarized in site 3. Program 4 is a venue, but this term is used as a point of departure. The site of sound in the tradition of the Western venue was the private mansion garden. This venue acts as a public sound park, and as an outcropping from the 115 wall supporting the Eastern approach to the Bay Bridge. Allowing people to interact with a skin that responds to infrastructural noise by adding their own manipulations to the constant flow facilitates playing with the drone, so that rather than simply hearing it, people must listen to it as part of their own cooperative, live, improvised composition. This application of method 1 shifts attention away from the bridge and toward a social space on the street for listening. 4. PIER 24, 26, & 28 + ACOUSTIC SCULPTURE + ACOUSTIC TYPOLOGIES Site 4 takes us to the waters edge in exploring how different commercial constituents are affected by infrastructural noise. This time, the precedent is Peter Richards and George Gonzalezs acoustic sculpture built in 1986 along San Franciscos Marina Boulevard. Rather than using tubes as in the wave organ from program 3, this proposal takes advantage of a concept from civil engineering called a noise shadow: the spread of a sound at a wider angle than a straight projection beyond the edge of a surface. In a similar way that method 4 outlines the typological method behind reverberation science, this proposal hypothesizes a scientific study of the concept of noise shadow from an architectural point of view that would ultimately be deployed in the design of a transondent canopy along Embarcadero in front of the piers.

BAKER 2

RECOMBINANT NARRATIVE - SYNTHETIC RECOMBINATIONS

READING RESPONSE Your ears dont get more tolerant, your psyche gets more tolerant. This quote comes from an article on the effects of working in a loud retail, restaurant or bar environment, or working out in a loud gym (Cara Buckley, Dangerous Decibels: Working or Playing Indoors, New Yorkers Face an Unabated Roar. New York Times. July 19, 2012). The space of sound is largely psychological, or perhaps more accurately, psychosomatic. The conditions for creating public noise ordinances stem from respect for the health of powerless victims of sound pollution, and there are many more victims who are not aware of the problem or are unable to solve it. Public studies of urban noise reached their peak during the efficiency craze of Taylorism and Fordism, when buildings were designed to provide a soothing respite from the din by offering sound reduction in exterior wall assemblies and centralized corporate playlists to stimulate productivity by reducing boredom (slowing heartrate) in an otherwise stagnant office environment. The corporation responsible for these playlists was called Muzak, which eventually evolved into a phenomenon called atmospherics. Taking advantage of the proven stimulating effects of Muzak, playlists are designed by audio architects as part of corporate branding strategies to help people disappear into a particular retail, work, or exercise environment. Once in a familiar environment, the individual becomes a human chameleon, lacking either strong sense of self or a guiding plan, but instead constatly looking outward for social cues, seeking an appropriate background condition to settle upon so as to comfortably loose distinction from the world (AUDC, Sumrell & Varnelis. The Stimulus Progression: Muzak and the Culture of Horizontality. Verb: Conditioning. ACTAR Barcelona 2006. p. 120). This project will help victims of sound pollution, but also activates urban atmospherics to make aurally social streets. THESIS STATEMENT Acoustics has long been a concern within the discipline of architecture. In ancient Greece, amphiteaters still exist from up to three millenia ago. In ancient Rome, Vitruvius wrote of echoes, reverberation, and wave interference; villas were equipped with parabolic sound walls to overhear distant conversations. Stonehenge, the rock-cut temples of India, and many other examples from around the world show the rich history of humans discovering the spatial properties of sound. As people became urban, industrialized, and networked, the world of sound has become increasingly enclosed and the world of noise has taken its place. Today, we find ourselves listening to music in the car or the living room. Outdoor theaters are located at the fringes of cities, and indoor concert halls are found insulated and isolated at the center of activity. A system of regulation has even arisen surrounding the volatile auditory conditions of urban living. This thesis project explores noise as a byproduct of architecture and urbanism within a larger framework of sound as (spatial) territory, both public and private. Whos space is being polluted when noise ordinances are passed? Who are the stakeholders and perpetrators? What is the purpose of transforming the urban soundscape? It is difficult for us to quantify if the hospital patients in New York City benefitted from the first noise ordinance passed in 1907 to put an end to the incessant hornblowing of steamengine operators. If public health is truly the concern, can we imagine a campaign for acoustic architecture sponsored by municipalities and public institutions? Or even the federal government? By controlling how people hear parts of the urban din at any particular time, architecture has the potential to provide a service and an opportunity to increase aural awareness in cities. Sonically didactic structures that support social life on the streets can provide psychological and even physical benefits via well-managed auditory experiences in the city. Eventually a more acoustically controlled city will allow for more spontaneous sound territories to form organically on neighborhood and regional levels.

BAKER 3

RECOMBINANT NARRATIVE - SYNTHETIC RECOMBINATIONS

1. HAIRBALL + INTERACTION DESIGN + MATERIAL STUDIES

BAKER 4

RECOMBINANT NARRATIVE - SYNTHETIC RECOMBINATIONS

2. AQUATIC PARK + TEMPORARY INSTALLATION + ACOUSTIC SURFACES

BAKER 5

RECOMBINANT NARRATIVE - SYNTHETIC RECOMBINATIONS

3. BAYSIDE VILLAGE + VENUE + DIGITAL TOOLS

BAKER 6

RECOMBINANT NARRATIVE - SYNTHETIC RECOMBINATIONS

4. PIER 24, 26, & 28 + ACOUSTIC SCULPTURE + ACOUSTIC TYPOLOGIES