Edinburgh
Polytope

Editors' Choice Award Laureate

Edinburgh, Scotland

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LAKA Competition 2020

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With Gergana Negovanska & Xizhe Huang​

Soundscapes shape urban experience but often suffer from noise pollution, especially in tourist areas like Edinburgh’s Royal Mile. Our project transforms city noise into interactive architecture, drawing on Xenakis’ research. Using Arduino devices, we mapped sound intensity and direction, identifying high-disturbance sites. These became a network of string instruments, where wind, rain, people, and animals generate sound, creating a polyphonic cityscape. Suspended strings interact with site geometry, producing spatially varying audio that records, modifies, and plays back environmental noise. Participants can tune frequency, pitch, and amplitude, turning urban spaces into adaptive, immersive instruments that engage both residents and visitors.