Sound is all around us, but how often do we think about the impact it has on us and how it connects us to our environment? In this unique talk, Lisa Lavia of the Noise Abatement Society and Harry Witchel from the Brighton and Sussex Medical School illustrate through a series of auditory demonstrations the importance of sound quality (rather than simply decibel levels) in the built environment. Lisa lavia is managing director of NAS and pioneered its applied soundscape programme, which is at the heart of a global movement establishing the future management of sound within the built environment. Through her vision and dedication to see these principles sustainably embedded in our towns and cities, she has been at the forefront of the recent establishment of the world’s first acoustics soundscape standard (ISO 12913-1:2014). Lisa is a member of the EU COST Action and ISO Working Group 54, both on Soundscapes, and has a research sabbatical with Sheffield University to help further applied soundscape studies. She is editor of ‘Sound Scape, where life sounds good’ e-magazine and has published several conference papers. Lisa has recently contributed and is lead chapter author of the forthcoming authoritative book “Soundscape and the Built Environment”. Dr. Harry Witchel is Discipline Leader in Physiology at Brighton and Sussex Medical School at the University of Sussex, England. In 2004, Dr Witchel received the national honor of being awarded The Charles Darwin Award Lecture by the British Science Association. His research interests are: Soundscape; Nonverbal Behaviour; Motion Capture; Engagement; Psychobiology. He has consulted and run experiments for Honda, Tesco, Nike and Nokia, and his writings have in appeared nationally in the Financial Times and the Times Higher Educational Supplement. His regular appearances internationally as a commentator promoting public engagement with science on radio and television include shows ranging from Newsnight to the BBC World Service Radio and the Discovery channel. He is the author the book “You Are What You Hear: How Music and Territory Make Us Who We Are”. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at ted.com/tedx

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