Soundscape as a criterion for urban design

In the context of our urbanized society, the improvement of the sound environment in public spaces is increasingly seen as a primary objective for the municipalities that want to integrate quality of life in their development criteria. In this paper the sound environment of two different areas of Doña Casilda park, in the city centre of Bilbao (ES), has been characterized in terms of selected quantitative acoustical indicators derived from the time history of sound pressure. A qualitative, questionnaire-based survey was conducted in parallel, among the users of the selected park, trying to assess the accuracy of the selected quantitative indicators to describe the soundscape perception for both occasional visitors and habitual users. The comparison of the two simultaneous studies demonstrates why an appropriate indicator is a key variable to incorporate the acoustical aspects as a criterion for the design of urban spaces.