The Noises of Venice:

An Exploration of Noise in a Historic City


The goal of this project was to create a system for citizens to report noise problems in the historically quiet city of Venice, thus enabling government officials to identify key issues and laying the foundations for a new era of digital citizenship. We created a smartphone application that records and uploads noise samples to our website at VeniceNoise.org, which then analyzes and interactively displays each sample. In the process of developing the application and website, we created a new and highly efficient means of data collection that will streamline future field research. After verifying the accuracy of these tools with ARPAV, we investigated a large area of Venice by collecting over 1,000 recordings. These recordings created a greater understanding of the noise situation in Venice.


Photo: http://ewh.ieee.org/reg/8/cms/images/stories/photos/Venice-Gondola.jpg

Blog Updates

  • An app, a website, and an unforgettable experience... We humbly began this project over four months ago, with only a vague idea that we'd be exploring noise levels in Venice. Perhaps we'd make a simple website ...
    Posted Jan 8, 2012 7:24 PM by Neil Pomerleau
  • Fieldwork Time     The time has finally come that it is possible to start fieldwork. We began last thursday by taking noise data for the west half of Giudecca. Giudecca is not necessarily ...
    Posted Nov 16, 2011 12:03 PM by Venice Noise
  • First Blogpost from Venice      So as the title indicates, we have arrived in Venice and it is every bit as exciting as we had hoped. We've acclimated ourselves to the weather and seen ...
    Posted Nov 16, 2011 11:57 AM by Venice Noise
  • Android Audio Recording So as the term has finished, here comes the latest and greatest version of our app. As always the new version can be found on my Deliverables page. I admit ...
    Posted Oct 16, 2011 12:04 AM by Wesley Ripley
  • The PQP is Done! That's right. We are done our PQP. The project proposal has been written and is submitted and we have given our final presentation. Next Saturday I will be flying ...
    Posted Oct 15, 2011 11:39 AM by Venice Noise
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