A mini nature reserve - in the form of a 6.5 metre circular seating area surrounded by plants and sounds from four Victorian national parks - has been installed in the heart of Melbourne's CBD to examine how a city's vibe or ambience can impact, and even improve, the mood of its residents.
The Sonic Gathering Space is a prototype biophilic sound design installation by Jordan Lacey, a Research Fellow from the School of Design at RMIT University, and created in collaboration with landscape architect Associate Professor Charles Anderson, also from RMIT.
Biophilic design is used within the building industry and urban design to increase residents' connectivity to the natural environment and to encourage restoration through direct and indirect contact with nature.
"Typically, biophilic design has been used to create ambiences in cities that are densely populated to create spaces of restoration for busy, stressed-out citizens who don't have access to nature and parks," Lacey said.
He said it was therefore "quite ironic" that when the design was finally completed and installed in the forecourt of the Old Melbourne Gaol, late last year, it was during another lockdown "when it was eerily quiet and not busy at all."
However, Lacey said the timing of the Sonic Gathering Space installation couldn't have been better, as the city's collective attention turns towards reinvigorating and reimagining the CBD, as part of its pandemic recovery.
"There's no doubt the vibe in Melbourne's CBD has changed dramatically over the past two years," he said.
"I think the most obvious difference is the lack of people on the street. You have a lot more people working and studying from home and businesses that have closed down.
"And even now, without any government lockdowns, people are trying to reduce their movement, so you don't have that normal human vibe of the cafes and bars and restaurants humming along. And there's a lot less traffic around, so it's also not as noisy."
"So, it provides the perfect opportunity to stop and think about 'what is it that draws us to a particular place, like the city? What are the sounds and smells and sights that make us want to keep coming back?" he said.
The Sonic Gathering Space also features a QR code, which users can scan to answer questions designed to understand how people respond to the ambience intervention.
The questions were designed by eminent environmental planning and urban research academic Emeritus Professor Lex Brown from Griffith University.
"The questions are specifically designed to understand people's mood when they arrive at the Sonic Gathering Space and their mood after they've experienced the work. They are designed to get down to the nitty gritty of what makes ambience, and does it improve people's mood,," Lacey explained.
"When we think about ambience we usually think about a cafe or a restaurant, but I am interested in exploring the kinds of interventions that can be introduced into cities that can generate a certain vibe in a city and that also have the potential to impact people's moods and feelings in an everyday context."
Lacey says with an increase in hybrid working arrangements, there is an opportunity for the city to be reimagined, not just as a place of commerce, but also a place of intrigue.
"If biophilic design has been partly about exploring how we can create small sites of ambience for restoration in dense cities, it's now a great time to think about, well, what are the interventions we can think about to reinvigorate and create a bit more of a buzz and vibe in a quiet city."
Lacey says Melbourne already has a strong, global reputation for creating a "beautiful, unique ambience," going back to the 1980s, when it began transforming its intricate network of underused laneways into vibrant places for art, retail, alfresco dining and hidden bars.
"Melbourne has famously used design interventions previously to create a certain ambience, particularly with its laneways. We've been a world leader in that," he said.
"So, there's no question we can reimagine and reinvigorate the city for it's changing needs. And I believe the laneways will continue to play an important role in reimagining the ambience of our beautiful city.
"Part of that might be introducing things like sounds and small park benches and plants and other textures into those laneways to offset the infrastructure and traffic noise, so people can also use them as potential sites of respite, because they're very special."
The Sonic Gathering Space will remain in its current location until the middle of the year when Lacey will begin analysing the responses from users to gain insights into how the ambient intervention has impacted the mood and feelings of its users and what implications it might have for the future vibe of Melbourne's CBD.
The Sonic Gathering Space is located at 377 Russell Street, Melbourne.
