This paper presents the findings of a user focused soundscape survey, that took place in a visual task based and a computational task based open-plan office spaces. Aim of this study was to conduct a grounded theory survey which captures individuals' subjective response to the soundscape and creating a conceptual framework in the end. In order to achieve this goal, acoustical environment and sound sources were identified. In-situ measurements of sound levels (LAeq) and simulations, prepared by Odeon Room Acoustics Software 13.10 Combined, were used to explore the acoustical environment of the office spaces. Grounded Theory was used as the main research method to create a conceptual soundscape framework, and to reveal employees perception of the soundscape of their work environment. As part of grounded theory, semi-structured interviews were conducted with forty-nine employees from both types of offices. The results showed how the task at hand were affected by the sound environment and employees' characteristics. Sound that were not expected or out of context and those that interfere with the concentration demanding tasks caused a negative interpretation of the soundscape. Due to this, employees' adopted coping methods such as, accepting and habituating, intervening to the sound source, or putting on headphones to isolate themselves from the soundscape. It was discovered during the interviews that employees were concerned with silence as much as they were concerned with the noise. Employees expressed that the sound of keyboard and mouse means that they are working at that moment, there are other people around, and they are not working alone, or not working overtime.

This study presents a research that is concerned with the indoor soundscape in historical mosque. Hacı Bayram Mosque and its surroundings area of Hamamönü has been selected as the research site due to being the historical center of Ankara. Although there are studies concerned with the acoustical characteristics of mosques, there isn't enough research focusing on user's expectation and interpretation of the indoor soundscape within a historical space. This study adopts the user focused on Grounded Theory (GT) to capture individuals' auditory sensation and interpretation of the indoor soundscape within a historical mosque. In depth interviews are held with congregation of the mosque and with the individuals sitting around the surrounding area. Based on the their subjective responses, a theoretical framework is generated to gain an insight on the factors that affect individuals understanding and expectation from mosques. The conceptual framework generated through Grounded Theory (GT) shows how indoor soundscape may influence their individuals' response to the physical environment of the mosque showing the association between the soundscape elements, spatial function and sense of place.

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This exploratory study focuses on a cognitive approach to categorize complex auditory scenes in the built environment, while prior studies have concentrated on outdoor acoustic environments. Six experts and 30 non-experts performed a free chip sorting task to assess 70 binaural recordings taken from indoor spaces. Healthcare, working, cultural, educational, leisure, worship, and transportation spaces (e.g., bus, train, metro stations, and airports) were chosen as public spaces. The participants were asked to classify the auditory objects into sound categories based on the descriptive labels provided by the authors to identify the sound sources. The findings, obtained through hierarchical agglomerative clustering and non-metric multidimensional scaling (MDS), show that there are three prominent category labels regarding perceived sound in the indoor acoustic environment: (1) intelligible and unintelligible speech; (2) periodic and transient sounds; and (3) stationary and non-stationary sounds. Human-generated sounds such as conversation, laughter, footsteps, and coughing vary over time according to the context of the built environment. Moreover, technology-related sounds, such as mechanical and electronic ones, have a deterministic and random nature that differ according to the function of the spaces.