Sound barriers to enable open windows and integration in landscape

Abstract

Sound barriers are a familiar sight along highways. They act to reduce noise levels in residential areas. As architectural elements that influence the environmental view, sound barriers form a variety of kinds of geometrical shapes, textures, and colour combinations, and they are made of different building materials, such as concrete, plastics (including transparent panels), glass, wood etc. A part of the sound barriers is designed to be impressive, having a strong architectural effect on the landscape. Yet another extreme is possible -merging with the environment. This paper illustrates a diversity of solutions that make part of the environment, and are not significant visually, or at least minimize the intervention in nature. Examples of such designs that are shown here are chosen from a variety that includes the moderate slope barrier, the local screening, the combination of earth berms with walls, lowered roads, hidden walls, walls with end absorption and non planar walls.

A Computerized Evaluation of the Acoustical Performance of Sunshades

“…Although there are many other versions for calculating the effect of sound barriers (Li & Wong, 2005;Rosenhouse, 2006) they are much more complicated. Equation (7) is sufficient for our purpose.…”