Soundscape of Urban Open Spaces in Hong Kong

Abstract Open spaces are considered important assets for urban inhabitants. The acoustic quality in these open spaces can enhance the visitors' experience and enjoyment. This study attempts to characterize the acoustic environment of urban open spaces in Hong Kong and unravel how visitors evaluate the acoustic environment. The study selected 25 urban open spaces of various sizes and types in six districts with different surrounding land-uses and development history. At these study sites, a total of 1610 visitors were successfully interviewed and 210 sound recordings were taken. Analysis of the sound recordings shows that the sound level and sound sources in the selected open spaces vary with time and place. Because of the dense road network and proximity of urban open spaces to the roadways in Hong Kong, traffic noise is the dominant sound source. Notwithstanding, human voice and sounds from birds and fountain are also commonly heard. Among these sound sources, visitors generally prefer bird songs and water sound to other sources. The survey results also show that the acoustic quality perceived by the visitors is only weakly related to the overall sound level and determined more by the presence or absence of wanted sound. The finding highlights the importance of context in the visitors' subjective evaluation of the acoustic quality which has implications on soundscape design of urban open spaces.