Sonorous Landscapes is a research project led by Lancaster University in partnership with Slough Borough Council and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council in partnership with Future Observatory and the Design Museum, London. It will develop innovative methods that capture biodiversity through sound and light and communicate this creatively to residents of Slough. Building upon a previous collaboration, Slough’s Digital Urban Forest initiative, it aims to help to facilitate environmental stewardship and biodiversity conservation in urban woodlands and green spaces. The project will also include several outdoor workshops, a website that communicates local biodiversity, and an exhibition in Slough.
Sonorous Landscapes seeks to achieve three key goals. The first is to provide residents with ongoing awareness of biodiversity at specific sites by creatively visualising daily and seasonal changes in urban soundscapes, as well as light, temperature, and humidity. The project aims to capture and communicate changing levels of biodiversity (in particular birds, bats, and insects) throughout the year in ways that can increase awareness and support stewardship, conservation, and rewilding efforts. Second, the project will try to understand how people perceive and value biodiversity and how the kinds of methods developed might affect this. Third, it will ask how the insights into biodiversity created by these methods might be able to help urban design professionals and policymakers make informed decisions that contribute to a broader green transition agenda, promoting sustainable and resilient urban ecosystems.
Overall, by offering insights into biodiversity in public green spaces, Sonorous Landscapes aims to support biodiversity and rewilding initiatives in urban areas that create a more sustainable future for cities.
For enquiries about Sonorous Landscapes, please contact Rupert Griffiths
