New trends in sound planning using immersive virtual reality technology

Sustainable sound planning has been drawing more attention as citizens are demanding higher levels of comfort and livable environment while keeping the convenient access to transportation and neighborhood in urban settings. Particularly in Hong Kong, we see a lot of innovative building designs, such as smart facades, are there improving the overall indoor sonic environment of the premises. Apparently, different situations and designs can result in varying levels of costs and benefits. How to balance these becomes a challenge for the acoustical designers and sound planners. This paper presents a case study revealing how virtual reality technology can be applied to let the relevant stakeholders “experience” the noise benefits that a particular smart facade design can bring by “perceiving” the sonic environment and having it associated with different design options and costs.