Sonic engagement and the sound skyscraper

The domestication of the urban territory and the regulation of the public space have long been processes of architectural formation. The sensory deprivation of the spatial experience by the twentieth-century society encompassed a series of interventions that resulted in the silencing of the cityscape. At present there are three main characterisations of sound: sound as an object in space (noise and music), sound as an acoustic property of space and sound as art. In architectural practice, in particular, sound is largely studied from a scientific point of view in acoustical considerations, aimed at the control of the dissipation of waves in interior spaces. The paper presents recent theoretical and experimental doctoral research aimed at the characterisation of sound as a building material in spatial practice revealing a correlation between active/passive listening and the creation of space. The mere perception of sound often resulted in the determination of sound from a quantitative point of view and its characterisation as an element of nuisance (noise). The interpretation of sound elements, on the contrary, implied a qualitative determination of sound and its subsequent engagement led to the creation of a new mental space superposed to the physical underlying space