MISSION

Recomposing the City is a collaborative research group. Our mission is to bring together artists, architects, planners and others in investigating the relationship of sound to urban space. We explore various questions on urban sound through seminars, events, publications, and design projects. Our aim is to support new design and research projects, and to improve the understanding of sound within architecture/urban studies and practice.

ABOUT

Recomposing The City was founded in 2013 by Gascia Ouzounian (Music, University of Oxford) and Sarah Lappin (Architecture, Queen's University Belfast). Our project has brought together local and international researchers from a variety of disciplines: music and sonic arts, architecture and planning, geography, anthropology, film studies, and creative writing. Since its inception in 2013 Recomposing the City has hosted over twenty concerts and lectures, three symposia, a cross-faculty postgraduate seminar, exhibitions, . Current and past projects can be found on our Events page.

ACTIVITIES

Recomposing the City has supported the following activities:

2019-20

• Launch of scoring.city project website

• Awarded €2 million from European Research Council for the project Sonorous Cities: Towards a Sonic Urbanism

• Supported Crafting a Sonic Urbanism: The Political Voice by Theatrum Mundi

• Supported Urban Nostalgia: The Musical City in the 19th and 20th Centuries chaired by Dr Lola San Martin at EHESS, Paris

2018-19

• Publication of Acoustic Cities: London & Beirut: works by 10 artists from Lebanon & UK responding to the acoustic condition of London and Beirut.

• Launch events for Acoustic Cities: London & Beirut in Sursock Museum (Beirut); Bloomsbury Theatre, London; and Modern Art Oxford.

• Hosted ‘Scoring the City’ workshops (experimental notation for urban design) in partnership with Theatrum Mundi, in London, Beirut, Belfast, and Paris

2017-18

• Authoring an Advice Note, The Sound-Considered City, for Belfast City Council

• Contributing to workshops on urban sound hosted by Theatrum Mundi

• Co-hosting an Acoustic Cities Study Day (March 2, University of Oxford), with Theatrum Mundi and Urban Rhythms.

• Fieldworks and workshops in Beirut, Lebanon as part of AHRC-funded project 'Hearing Trouble'

• Presentation at KESS Belfast

• Publication of the sound/mapping projects Constructing a River (Chrysoula Drakaki and Matilde Meireles) and OAZE (Una Lee)

2016-17

• Workshops at The Metropolitan Arts Centre (Belfast) on urban sound design and acoustic planning (September 2016, Belfast)

• A special issue of Evental Aesthetics on 'Sound Art and Environment'

• Continuing research towards the AHRC-funded project 'Hearing Trouble'

• Keynote address at 'The Role and Position of Sounds and Sounding Arts in Public Environments

2015-16

• The launch of Hearing Trouble, a 3-year research project funded by the AHRC

• A special issue of Journal of Sonic Studies on 'Recomposing the City: New Directions in Urban Sound Art'

• Research activities in Berlin, Belfast and Bonn

• Research presentations at Sound Art Matters (Aarhus), Culture in Urban Space (Copenhagen) and Ambiances Tomorrow (Volos)

2014-15 

• Piloting the first cross-faculty unit between Sonic Arts and Architecture at Queen's, Soundspace Seminar Series, with the support of the Queen's Annual Fund

• A Postgraduate Student Symposium

• An ongoing seminar and concert series at the Sonic Arts Research Centre

• Invited talks at the Blavatnik School of Government's 'Flourishing Cities' conference, and the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation conference at Onassis Cultural Centre in Athens

• A week-long workshop on East Belfast Acoustic Mapping for architecture students

2013-14

• Presentations at the annual conference of the Architectural Research in the Humanities Association (Bristol) and the European Sound Studies Association (Copenhagen)

• A week-long workshop on 'listening maps' for students in Architecture at Queen's

• An exhibition, 48Hz, at Platform Arts in Belfast

• An International Symposium in Spring 2014

• Publications in Leonardo Music Journal (LMJ23), The Acoustic City (eds. Gandy and Nilsen), and Architecture and Culture 2(1)