UC Berkeley

This study is an investigation of the role of sound in the making of a sense of place. The topic is explored both theoretically and practically within the scopes of real, virtual and augmented environments. It is argued that new media can be utilized to generate multi- sensory experiences that can engender a sense of place. By doing so, new media applications can provide valuable insight into the ways in which environmental perception function and make it possible to investigate how multiple senses interact with each other to generate place experience.

In the first part of the study, the concept of place is traced from its philosophical origins along its evolution through different traditions of western thought. This is followed by the analysis of four mainstream descriptions of sense of place from architecture and social theory. A phenomenological framework is proposed suggesting that place experience is founded on multi-sensory social and environmental interactions followed 1

by the introduction of the concept of soundscape, as the auditory dimension of place experience.

Two case-studies are presented in the second part of the study, both of which utilize new media to investigate the generation of digital soundscapes. In the first case study, the theoretical framework established on place and soundscapes in the preceding chapters is utilized in the modeling and evaluating a virtual soundscape environment for a cultural heritage reconstruction project. The second case study is an empirical investigation that uses mobile audio-augmented reality to test and evaluate the influence of sound on the sense of place.