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• 1 2019-11-27T19:49:17-08:00 Sound by Design 9 plain 2019-12-03T09:19:51-08:00 “On November 17,2017, the Canada Science and Technology Museum marked a pivotal moment in its history. The museum reopened its doors to the public, starting a fresh chapter following a three-year closure and an $80.5=million renewal of its entire building, which originally opened in 1967” (Clouthier, ingeniumcanada.org) (Fig. 6). It is in the current museum where the protagonist interior presents itself, the Sound by Design exhibit. The consideration of sound within the CSTM leading up to this has allowed an accommodation, not a prioritization, of both intentional sound and unintentional sound. Clearly shown is the use of sound to enhance exhibits, yet the sensory experience has been hindered due to the interior design and lack of all encompassing sound consideration. This is still relevant in the renovation, as it is nearly impossible to negate all sound aspects whilst promoting what sounds you do want. The current museum faces issues with an exposed HVAC system, and there is always sound added by visitors. Babaian’s experience highlights this issue: “In the latest reboot of the museum, our design teams, in the exhibit I worked on, wanted an ambient soundtrack, it is never on now. I do not know why it is never on, but I know that when there are lots of people in there there is no point in it being on because you cannot hear it". Contrasting this, In Sound by Design, the curator, Tom Everrett, is careful to consider many aspects of sound design to provide the best sensory experience. Everrett notes that “To ‘design sound’ is to consider not only how sound elements might be introduced to enhance or expand an exhibition’s content, but also how these elements might be managed within the broader acoustic environment of the exhibition space” (Everrett, 1). The exhibit (Fig. 7), with particular lighting and artifact placement which helps mitigate overwhelming visuals, employs materials which assist in providing a better acoustic experience. This in turn helps a visitors experience. For example, In Everrett’s description of the design process he writes: “we opted to apply last-minute structural changes that would ensure that all internal walls could be acoustically treated” (Everrett, 10). The strategies employed assist as well: “creating a sound sketch... could help us determine roughly how many sound-based elements we could afford to introduce” (Everett, 6). Also, avoiding headphones assistance: “excessive reliance on headphones could be detrimental to the overall communal experience of sound we wished to achieve” (Everett, 6). Design restraints did exist however, for example, “Compounding the problem was a museum-wide requirement to that the exhibition adopt an open-concept format” (Everett, 6). The isolating of sounds is prohibited by way of this, but, through the techniques used above a well balanced sensory experience was achieved. These techniques and limitations explain the floor plan quite well, the diversion of sound elements, open plan, proper lighting, modular artifacts, and acoustically considerate materials compose the interior (Fig. 8).