Aug 19, 2007

In another article relating to my previous post on noisy restaurants, Time magazine published an article last week about soundscapes in commercial spaces:

“Julian Treasure isn’t happy with what he hears. Standing in a coffee bar in London’s Soho district, he’s forced to raise his voice to list the noises bouncing around the café: the rumble of an espresso machine, the hum of a refrigerator and the tinny tones of Michael Jackson through shoddy speakers. To Treasure, it sounds like money slipping away.”

It’s encouraging to see a mainstream publication like Time is acknowledging the importance of soundscapes in public spaces. However, I hope that shop owners don’t misinterpret “pump up the sales volume” as “pump up the volume” - the “right” soundscape at 110 dB is not the “right soundscape.”

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