Alexander Kazakov
Gabi Kiryluk
Julia Nordqvist
Jiashu Sun
Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, 2024
DM2601 Media Technology and
Interaction Design course
In our work, we wanted to highlight the subtle, yet essential relationships between neighbors in shared living environments, which are facilitated through sound. Particularly, our focus was to showcase how people influence each other through sound, and make these relationships more apparent. In apartment complexes, sounds from daily activities like conversations, music, or even footsteps naturally travel through walls, making sound a shared experience, whether intentional or not. These soundscapes create an inherent interconnection between residents, where one’s actions directly affect others.
Pressing onto different “sound triggers” such as dog barking, or neighbour drilling the walls showcases how these sounds are affecting the neighbouring flats.
In the designed prototype a person interacting with the “flat scene” gets to play different sounds such as: barking dog, playing music, drilling simulating different sounds we make at homes. The signal then is passed onto the “sound lamp” which visualises how the specific sound influences the neighbouring flats - if it is likely to have large effect you see the neighbouring flats light in red, and as the impact lowers it turns to green.
The idea is that every neighbour gets one of the sound lamps which can be switched on and off at any point. It can be used as guidance for yourself when you’re planning a house party, or renevations - to see how your sound affects others. In the final product, decibel meters would be located in everyone’s flat and upon the move in, they would be callibrated to the sound lamps of you neighbours assessing whether they might be able to hear different sounds coming from your house or not .
Mu contributions:
Read the project workbook