Sonic Playground

Yuri Suzuki is a sound artist and designer who has created this public art installation comprised of giant playground “talk tubes” in Atlanta, Georgia.

Sculptural playground talk tubes

Immediately, my interest was peaked because of the architectural implications of these forms. Not only have they taken on a truly human scale, but they have transformed this plaza by generating a field of interactive and communicative pieces.

As I began to read about this project, I became even more excited as these forms were driven by software that analyzed how best sound waves traveled through these horns and pipes. The software they used is a 3D modeling software, Rhinoceros, and a parametric software plugin, Grasshopper:

Screenshot of Grasshopper Script, a Rhinoceros software plug-in

In collaboration with the Yuri Suzuki Design Studio, Luca Dellatorre created a plugin for this Grasshopper script that allows a sound source to be captured and sent in a specific direction which helped to optimize the geometries for the pipers, horn, and acoustic mirrors which allow the sound to reflect in different directions. In this way, the horns can capture as much sound as possible and then reflect and spread the noise level as much as possible to the receiver. While Grasshopper is not an acoustic software, due to the wave behavior of sound, it can be simulated and analyzed in similar ways to other physical elements.

For more information on the Yuri Suzuki Design Studio go to: http://yurisuzuki.com/design-studio