A Daily Dose of Architecture: AE2: Highway Noise Barrier - The Diigo Meta page

• 11 Mar 08
  

  Yule Heibel

  John Hill has an excellent entry on highway noise barriers, those typically uninspired, unattractive, fake brick walls that are supposed to address a particular problem of sprawl, "dispersed living patterns and the high-speed roads that allow access to them" (as he puts it). Mercifully, there are attractive alternatives, ...and alternate solutions: "...the best case for raising the bar on the design of these barriers is to make them part of a building; in other words bring the architecture to the road, don't use the barrier to separate the two." Brilliant!

  daily_dose_of_architecture highway_noise john_hill noise_barriers sprawl

  • One product of the two main components of sprawl -- dispersed living patterns and the high-speed roads that allow access to them -- is all too often relegated to engineers and manufacturers instead of designers, and therefore is all too often an eyesore. I'm talking about highway noise barriers, those walls erected along the sides of highways where development occurs, and where those in the development do not want to hear (or see) the cars speeding by.
  • it will continue to be installed by developers and jurisdictions that don't want to pay too much for what's becoming more and more required, as highways and dwellings creep ever closer together.
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  • • A couple projects previously featured on my weekly page show that the best case for raising the bar on the design of these barriers is to make them part of a building; in other words bring the architecture to the road, don't use the barrier to separate the two.

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