Topography of Noise: the sound as a project catalyst

João Maia

Starting from a concrete case study - the Fair Camp of Vila Verde - and from the questions raised by it, the present work is an investigation about interpreting, representing and intervine in space, created from it’s acustic dimension, going further than one ‘way of looking’ that is purely visual. The geomorphological characteristics and it’s process of transformation through the urbanizing process of Vila Verde, in mid 90’s, in which the Fair Camp integrates, make this sample a significative one about the problematics that contemporary territory raises, namely about the potential of public space to establish relations between proximate and territorial scales. The confrontation of these questions with an in situ experience of the place, that goes back to the period prior to the construction of the sample, allowed us to construct a specific ‘way of looking’ about it, which structured an active and propositional interpretation, culminating in the construction of a specific methodology, named topography of noise. In this methodology we interpreted and synthesized the case study landscape starting from it’s acoustic dimension, simultanously constructing a system of representation that translates this ‘way of looking’ and that became operative for the next step - the intervention proposal. The topography of noise is an investigation project that crosses the interpreting-intervining, materializing a methodology of project as investigation, in which projecting isn’t only about ‘constructing’, but also about generating knowledge. The proposal relied on the potential of transformation of the sample’s space starting from the reorganization of the acoustic landscape that inhabits it, in continuity with the specific ‘way of looking’. In short, this work contributes with an alternative methodology of project that takes in account the acoustic dimension of space, being possible to be applied in other contexts and places.
Sound archive Records of the day 06-04-2013
Records of the day 02-03-2013
Old records