The focus of the building industry and research is shifting from delivering satisfactory spaces to going beyond what is merely acceptable with a wave of new research and practice dedicated to exploring how the built environment can support task performance and enhance people’s health and well-being. The present study addresses the role of acoustics in this paradigm shift. Indoor soundscape research has recently emerged as an approach that brings a perceptual perspective on building and room acoustics in order to shape built environments that “sound good” according to building occupants’ preference and needs. This paper establishes an initial discussion over some of the open questions in this field of research that is still in an embryonic stage. A thematic analysis of structured interviews with a panel of experts offered a range of perspectives on the characterization, management, and design of indoor soundscapes and health-related outcomes. The discussion pointed out the importance of both perceptual and multisensory research and integrated participatory design practices to enable a holistic view regarding the complex building–user interrelations and the design of just cities. Soundscape methodologies tailored to the peculiarities of indoor soundscapes can help to measure and predict the human perceptual response to the acoustic stimuli in context, thus reducing the risk of mismatches between expected and real building experiences. This perceptual perspective is expected to widen the scientific evidence for the negative and positive impacts of the acoustic environment on human health, well-being, and quality of life. This will support prioritizing the role of acoustics in building design and challenge many current design practices that are based on a noise control approach.

Today the so-called “smart city” is connoted by massive implementation of novel, digital technology, which is often considered as the best solution to global issues affecting contemporary cities. Sophisticated and low-cost technological solutions are developed also in the field of noise monitoring and they are expected to play an important role for acousticians, city planners and policy makers. However, the “smart city” paradigm is controversial: it relies on advanced technological solutions, yet it fails to consider the city as a social construct and it often overlooks the role of citizens, in the quest for technological advances and novel methods. This is especially true in the field of smart acoustic solutions addressing the issue of urban quiet areas: main methods and technologies developed so far barely involve citizens and consider their preferences. This contribution tackles this challenge, by illustrating a novel mixed methodology, which combines the soundscape approach, the citizen science paradigm and a novel mobile application - the Hush City app - with the ultimate goal of involving people in identifying, assessing and planning urban quiet areas. Firstly, the theoretical background and the methods applied are described; secondly initial findings are discussed; thirdly potential impact and future work are outlined.

At an international level it is recognised that urban noise has serious and negative public health impacts. This leading editorial and the special issue it accompanies seeks to broaden this agenda. An important goal for Cities & Health is to give ear to new urban health topics, methods and collaborations. In doing so this paper presents the topic of urban sound and health from several unique angles. At its core, we deliberately move the focus beyond noise levels, as measured by decibels, and harm to health through the stress of relentless background noise. Instead, we focus on the concept of soundscape, a more qualitatively nuanced research subject of enquiry. The paper serves as an introduction to soundscape and health from several distinct disciplinary positions and lays a good intellectual foundation for the twenty-two papers published in this special issue. We hope that through a soundscape approach we can encourage fresh thinking about urban sound, including how people perceive and relate to their sonic environments, and show how sound can contribute to health. We believe that this approach can provide a collaborative platform for sound artists, sound technologists, urbanists and local people to work together with public health and create healthier urban environments.

Human health and planetary health are influenced by city lifestyles, city leadership, and city development. For both, worrying trends are leading to increasing concern and it is imperative that human health and environmental impacts become core foci in urban policy. Changing trajectory will require concerted action; the journal Cities & Health is dedicated to supporting the flow of knowledge, in all directions, to help make this happen. We wish to foster communication between researchers, practitioners, policy-makers, communities, and decision-makers in cities. This is the purpose of the City Know-how section of the journal. We invite you to join these conversations. In order to strengthen the community of interest, we would like to include many and varied voices, including those from younger practitioners and people who are supporting health and health equity in everyday urban lives.

Today, cities have become increasingly noisier. In Europe, over 125 million people are affected by noise pollution from traffic every year, and apparently, quietness is becoming a luxury available only for the elites. There is a growing interest in protecting and planning quiet areas, which has been recognized as a valid tool to reduce noise pollution. However, developing a common methodology to define and plan quiet areas in cities is still challenging. The “Beyond the Noise: Open Source Soundscapes” project aims to fill this gap of knowledge by applying the soundscape approach, the citizen science paradigm and open source technology, with the ultimate goal of making quietness as a commons. Accordingly, a new mixed methodology to analyze and plan small, quiet areas on the local scale has been tested through the development of a pilot study in a Berlin neighborhood affected by environmental injustice and noise pollution. In this pilot study, a number of citizens have been involved in crowdsourcing data related to “everyday quiet areas” by using novel mobile technologies. This contribution illustrates the project’s theoretical background, the methods applied, the first findings of the study and its potential impact.

Road traffic noise constitutes the second most harmful environmental stressor in Europe, affecting over 125 million people every year. Excessive exposure to noise can cause cardiovascular disease, sleep disturbance and cognitive impairment, especially for children. Notwithstanding that children are rarely included in environmental noise evaluation. Noise mitigation measures mainly address noise sources, overlooking people’s perception. The same applies for the identification and protection of quiet areas; an effective noise reduction measure recommended by the Environmental Noise Directive. Although the European Environment Agency recommended the adoption of methods addressing human perception, i.e. the soundscape approach, how children can be included in quiet areas identification remains rather understudied at the European policy level. This contribution addresses this issue, illustrating the case of a soundwalk conducted with children in Berlin for the 2017 International Noise Awareness Day within the context of the ‘Beyond the Noise: Open Source soundscapes’ project. Firstly, the project’s rationale is outlined, then the soundwalk procedure is detailed and the findings presented. In conclusion, it is argued that building healthier and quieter cities can be possible if we educate children on the importance to our health of living in good sonic environments, and if we include them in soundscape evaluation.