This paper reports an example of an urban sustainable regeneration process in a small open square following the soundscape approach in urban design and involving a transdisciplinary team. The renovation of this urban public space brought changes in its acoustic environment and improved soundscape perception as much more pleasant (enhanced comfort). The rehabilitation broadened the use of the square and enhanced users’ wellbeing and health, showing a significant positive impact of sound: reduction in negative emotions and perceived stress while increasing positive feelings. To conclude, the implications of the results about restorative environments in urban sound planning and future areas of research are discussed.

A methodological proposal of a scale for human perception assessment of acoustic environment (acoustic comfort) in urban public spaces is presented: Acoustic Comfort Assessment Scale (ACAS 12). This paper shows the process of constructing this scale and its psychometric properties and validation. The approach is based on the soundscape conceptualisation collected in ISO 12913–1:2014 (Acoustics—Soundscape: Definition and conceptual framework). The proposed scale is a 5-point semantic differential scale made up of twelve pairs of bipolar adjectives, grouped around five theoretical dimensions. It is based on previous versions of 2-point and 3-point scales. The ACAS-12 scale is the result of several empirical studies carried out by the authors on environmental and acoustic comfort assessment, beginning in 2011 in some cities of the Basque Country (Spain). Selected urban open places cover a wide variability of acoustic and non-acoustic characteristics, as well as the type of participants (real users) and activities carried out in these places. The original language of this scale is Spanish. The back-translation technique has been applied to create the English version. The results highlight the good psychometric properties of the ACAS 12 scale (Cronbach’s alpha 0.91 and composite reliability 0.90) and indicate that the best factorial solution is that of a single factor composed of the 12 pairs of adjectives that would explain approximately 50% of the ACAS-12 variance (44% of extracted variance by Raykov’s method or 56% by the MAP test). The absolute and incremental fit indices were above the minimum reference value of 0.90 and the residual-based indices showed values close to suitability (SRMR = 0.057; RMSEA = 0.042). This result supports the consideration of the ACAS-12 scale as a general measure of acoustic comfort.

The use of nature-based solutions (NbS) in urban regeneration processes has been demonstrated as a multifunctional solution to increase the resilience of the built environment, contributing to improved environmental quality and health and wellbeing, and providing empowerment to communities facing natural hazards. However, when it comes to the assessment of psychological wellbeing and social benefits, existing evidence is still limited. To contribute to the knowledge of NbS’ psychosocial benefits, it is necessary to develop and test assessment tools to contribute to a common NbS monitoring framework. In this paper, we describe the development of a psychosocial benefit assessment tool for nature-based interventions in the urban regeneration processes. This tool has been developed within the framework of the H2020 CLEVER-Cities project through a participatory and co-design process, considering advanced sustainability paradigms, such as Regenerative Sustainability and Sensory Sustainability Science. This tool is structured around two dimensions, (1) perceived health and wellbeing and (2) social benefits, which refer to 13 attributes, assessed through 24 items. The Delphi method was used to validate the assessment tool, in which a multidisciplinary panel of experts participated. The results indicate that it has good face and content validity, concluding with the potential applicability of this tool in different contexts.