Designing noise barriers with additional purpose - five examples

Designing noise barriers with additional purpose gives more value to the built environment. Built examples are described in this paper with design process and resulting effect. The examples presented briefly below serve as inspiration on how to design barriers with additional purpose. For an innovation contest, which required a sustainable solution, a 3D printed shot-earth barrier was designed that could be created from the soil in the surroundings. For a park where safety was required a low T-shaped brick barrier was designed to keep visibility into the park. For a planned playground, next to a ferry advancement area, a barrier and a surround system with added jungle sounds was designed. In pursuit to increase barrier technical service life, an added device was designed to increase noise reducing effect and protection of the barrier. In another innovation contest a combined solution for air quality and noise was required. The proposed solution was a sonic crystal made of a bioreactor algae farm and vegetation added on noise barrier. The examples are shown in this paper with description, test results and images.