With H22 City Expo, 30 May to 3 July 2022, Helsingborg is being transformed into a test bed for innovation and new approaches. All with the goal of improving life for the people of the city. Developing the city for the people, with the people is one of the cornerstones.
It all started with a big bang! And from that, the world as we know it started to develop. There has always been a sound environment on planet earth and the soundscape has evolved through time – without interference of humans. Sounds of the rain forest tell us how the world sounded 100 million years ago, long before the origin of our species. But, as with many challenges globally, humans have changed the conditions.
Today, cities are growing and more people are sharing smaller surfaces. This leads to negotiations about space. Compromising about physical space is obvious, yet compromising about the sound environment still seems to be a delicate issue. The process of compromising should strengthen a community as opposed to kill vibrant and essential offers in the city just because they are loud.
Urban planning, noise regulations, and the determination to maintain critical social bonds are essential to any community with a sense of identity. There are ways to handle noise and urban sounds collaboratively. But how? That is what we would like to investigate during H22 City Expo!
Design is the act of creating order out of chaos. Efterklang is tuning the world to make our sound environment more purposeful and the world a better sounding place. The echoes of our lives should be a pleasant sound for generations to come.
Through a series of activities, Efterklang will raise questions regarding the governance of the urban sound environment and highlight how to use sound as a design feature in urban planning.
How do we create urban spaces where people want to stay, play and explore? Sound has the ability to affect without being noticed, an invisible feature in architecture.
The jungle playground in Oceanhamnen is equipped with a unique soundscape where visitors can experience jungle animals through multiple senses. Guided tours of the soundscape will demonstrate how sound can be used to reinforce a physical location’s identity and also stimulate or inspire the user. By talking with city expo visitors and residents, we would like to explore how sound design, or “soundscaping”, can be used on a larger scale in different areas and meeting places around cities.
Where & when: Dockanparken in Oceanhamnen, 30 May to 3 June, CET 09-19
With a mobile soundscape, we will meet with expo visitors and city residents at different locations around the city for a real-time demonstration of how sounds can affect your state of mind, and your physical surroundings.
By talking with visitors and residents, we want to explore how to create places where people want to be and stay, either by removing unwanted noise, but mainly by adding sounds that create better conditions for well-being and recreation. Visitors can have a go at picking a sound composition from the soundscapes library to investigate how different sounds affect people and places.
Where & when: Route between Oceanhamnen – Slottshagen – Drottninghög – City, 30 May to 3 June, CET 11-16
Who decides what a city sounds like? What does legislation say?
We are all composers of the urban soundscape, and through a series of small presentations we hope to raise awareness among citizens and decision makers on how everyone can affect the governance of the urban soundscape. With a historical perspective, we raise questions concerning how the urban soundscape will be planned in the future city.
Where & when: Pixla Studios, Oceanhamnen 9 June CET 10.45 and 10 June CET 08.45. Drottninghög 16 June CET 14.30 and 28 June CET 10.45