{"id":629448,"date":"2026-09-27T21:56:36","date_gmt":"2026-09-27T21:56:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/629448\/"},"modified":"2026-09-27T21:56:36","modified_gmt":"2026-09-27T21:56:36","slug":"how-the-architecture-of-sound-is-transforming-cities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/629448\/","title":{"rendered":"How the Architecture of Sound Is Transforming Cities"},"content":{"rendered":"

Downey applies these same principles to the plans he makes for mainstream projects like museums, offices and transit centers. But making a space accessible for blind and low-vision people often also means thinking beyond sound. The majority of people with visual impairments have some form of light perception, so accessible design for the blind must (perhaps counterintuitively) pay attention to visual considerations as much as sonic and tactile ones. This is why the warning strip that runs along the edges of subway platforms must be bright yellow as well as mottled with discernible bumps.<\/p>\n

In urban spaces, sound pollution often prevents travelers from relying on sound alone as a cue. In his design for the Salesforce Transit Center in San Francisco, Downey had to contend with a terminal that held dozens of buses at a time, drowning out any subtle acoustic design he might have been tempted to craft. Likewise, the pattern of bus traffic \u2014 swooping in and out of loading bays \u2014 created a sawtooth-shaped curb that made for an inefficient landmark for cane travelers. \u201cYou couldn\u2019t follow the curb along the edge, otherwise you\u2019ll be there all day, going in and out, in and out,\u201d Downey said. His solution was to mark the route with a series of linear grooves and a textured pathway a cane user could find and follow. \u201cYou move from smooth, polished concrete to a rougher surface,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s the signal path to the exit.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

This also had the advantage of integrating blind people into the design. \u201cThe yellow, truncated-dome guiding strip, that\u2019s the typical way of thinking,\u201d Downey said. \u201cYes, it\u2019s needed for a smooth transition from the sidewalk to the road, but putting it down the length of a sidewalk or terminal \u2014 nobody benefits except, in theory, the blind person.\u201d Yellow warning strips are normally reserved for hazards, like a subway track, so using them for navigation sends a mixed signal. A solution like the textured concrete pathway, which adds an elegant visual accent along with a tactile guide, Downey said, is \u201cmore approachable, and less stigmatizing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The notion of universal design \u2014 that design for disability leads to better design for everyone \u2014 has undeniable appeal (the curb cut, which benefits wheelchair users, but quickly became beloved by people with strollers, carts, scooters, and so on, is the canonical example). But the reality is that building access also creates conflict. Some people who use walkers or wheelchairs, including those with spinal-cord injuries, hate rumble-strips and other textured elements on the ground that blind people value as warning or wayfinding elements. For the concrete in the Salesforce Transit Center, Downey built full-size mockups in the construction yard and brought in people with a variety of mobility impairments, in addition to cane and guide-dog users, to find a texture that was at once discernible to blind people but minimized the discomfort of those who needed to roll over it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even within groups of blind and low-vision people, consensus on best practices can be elusive. Paul DeFazio, a blind architect, was consulting on accessible signage in a renovation of Boston\u2019s Logan airport. \u201cThey kept making signs with a light-green background and white text,\u201d DeFazio said. \u201cI told them, \u2018You need to make the background black. \u2026 That\u2019s what\u2019s best for blind people.\u2019 Then, they brought in a group of user testers, one of whom said of the black version: \u2018I can\u2019t see that! You have to use a white background!’\u201d<\/p>\n

The conflict, for DeFazio, was a sign that the design process was working. \u201cThe depoliticized version feels too good,\u201d he said, referring to a situation where, say, a blind person convinces the designers that the black background is the right choice, and everyone agrees, pats each other on the back, and goes home. \u201cThat\u2019s consensus.\u201d DeFazio is more interested in dissensus: \u201cI don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to feel good for you,\u201d he said, \u201cbut we can create a space and figure it out together.\u201d In the end, DeFazio said, the group may never arrive at an agreement. \u201cSometimes you just have to be comfortable with the fact that we need different things.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

In her role as principal access and mobility planner at the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, Maddy Ruvolo deals with lots of disabled dissensus. \u201cSo much of transportation planning is about contested use of space,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd accessibility is a big piece of that.\u201d She described a \u201cdilemma\u201d around parking: Disabled people are statistically more likely to be pedestrians, and use public transit, and so efforts to reduce the presence of cars (and, thus, parking spaces) increase pedestrian safety and the efficiency of public transit. But, Ruvolo said, there are also many people with disabilities who \u201cdepend on cars for mobility, and have real concerns about needing to park near their destinations.\u201d As with DeFazio\u2019s dilemma at Logan airport, compromise and friction<\/a> is a permanent fixture of the landscape.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AA \u2018listening session\u2019 in the Arup Sound Lab in Chicago for the Indiana School for the Deaf and the Indiana School for the Blind and Visually Impaired. Credit: Annie Hollibaugh \/ Ratio Design<\/p>\n

The rise of hybrid electric vehicles in the early 2000s quieted the soundscape by reducing the number of loud combustion engines. But after a sharp rise in near-misses, injuries and, in some cases, fatalities in encounters between people (many of them blind) and these new, quieter cars, blind groups called for legislation. The Pedestrian Safety Act of 2010 finally established a requirement for all hybrid and electric vehicles to make a discernible sound under 20mph. Downey sees this as an opportunity. \u201cWe now have the ability to design an acoustic urban space with better sound,\u201d he said. But not all EV noise is created equal. Downey had strong opinions about the variety of sounds that EVs and hybrids made. When a friend came to pick him up in an Audi e-tron, Downey thought: Now, this is what an EV should sound like. \u201cIt didn\u2019t sound apologetic \u2014 they weren\u2019t fulfilling a requirement,\u201d he said. \u201cSomeone thought: What should it really sound like? It\u2019s an authentic, impressive-sounding, fabricated automotive sound.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The next arena after EVs is, of course, AVs \u2014 autonomous vehicles, from Google\u2019s driverless Waymo taxis on the streets of Phoenix and L.A., to Honolulu\u2019s autonomous metro train system. Many blind people (myself included) are thrilled at the prospect of access to a car that doesn\u2019t rely on someone else\u2019s schedule, sobriety or skill as a driver. But blind (and other disabled) riders sometimes rely on human interaction: Many blind people want to confirm with their driver that their destination is indeed where the map says it is once they\u2019ve arrived. And finding an idling driverless car can be much harder than finding one with a human who might roll down their window and call out your name. After blind organizations petitioned Waymo, riders can now trigger a honk or even a short digital melody to help them find their ride in a noisy environment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most profound shift in blind people\u2019s experience of navigating urban environments is the rise of the smartphone. \u201cWhen I\u2019m riding in a car, with the windows rolled up, I\u2019m in a cocoon,\u201d Mike May said. He\u2019s been developing consumer tech to help blind people with navigation for more than 30 years, most recently at the American Printing House for the Blind in Louisville. \u201cYou\u2019re 100 percent dependent on the sighted person knowing what\u2019s out there.\u201d But when GPS came on the scene, May saw a new way for a blind person to explore their environment. \u201cThere\u2019s a whole world, with millions of points of interest, and I can know what they are,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The problem is that Google Maps and other mainstream products aren\u2019t verbose enough. \u201cDriving along, the sighted person doesn\u2019t want to hear about everything they\u2019re passing, because they can see it,\u201d May said. But the blind person wants to know about the dog groomer studio tucked into the shadow of the Starbucks, or a new falafel joint in their neighborhood. \u201cGoogle and Apple don\u2019t announce that info, because sighted people don\u2019t need it,\u201d May said. So he created a series of technological interventions \u2014 most recently an app called Indigo<\/a> \u2014 that deliver that higher level of verbosity. May\u2019s app is one of dozens that exist to solve variations on this problem. There are apps that help with street crossings, apps that help plan routes, apps that print tactile maps and apps that aid in indoor navigation. And in the last few years, multimodal A.I. like ChatGPT and Meta\u2019s sunglasses can use front-facing cameras to describe the environment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Downey applies these same principles to the plans he makes for mainstream projects like museums, offices and transit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":629449,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6391,859,437,434,435,436,60063,9111,438,146,284499,85,46,77648,11595],"class_list":["post-629448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-accessibility","tag-architecture","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-blindness","tag-cities","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-environmental-noise","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-noise","tag-sound"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=629448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/629449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}