Soundscapes in urban church gardens

Abstract

Tranquility in urban church gardens has been assessed using field measurements and subjective evaluation. Church gardens in Stockholm and Seoul were selected for field measurement; sound environment was assessed to analyze the acoustical indicators such as sound pressure levels, percentile levels and sound quality metrics. In parallel, soundwalks were conducted by twenty two participants evaluating soundscape qualities in a church garden using questionnaires for subjective evaluation of tranquility. Tranquility perception in terms of acoustical and non-acoustical factors was evaluated using five point verbal scale and semantic differential method with adjectives through the questionnaire. Consequently, relationship between objective measure and subjective response were investigated.