Application of the City Ditty soundscape tool in an interdisciplinary urban park design competition

The user-centered soundscape design tool City Ditty has been supplemented with local data from Santiago, Chile, to be used in the design of an urban park in which the perception of natural soundscapes dominates over other sound sources. This local data comprises a 3D model of the space, ambisonic recordings of urban background noise, 3D assets and recordings of sound sources (e.g. regional birds). This sketchpad tool is being adapted to local particularities to increase its performance in biophilic design interventions in the target area, and to be able to auralize the proposed 3D park models. These interventions arise from a design competition in interdisciplinary teams and their results are evaluated through individual auralization tests. The design proposal whose soundscape gets the highest subjective rating will be optimized by iterating listening tests and adjusting the design parameters. Once optimized, the final design model can be experienced at City Ditty through head-mounted VR binaural playback as well as an immersive multi-channel playback system.