The Way Back Home - 24hr: Urban Music Box

National Taipei University of Technology

Project idea

The way home is usually a habitual process of walking the same path every day. During this time, although we have it entirely to ourselves, we seem to travel only for one purpose – to return home. Because the road we take is often crowded and chaotic, we tend to take this journey with our attention turned to nothing but navigating constant visual stimuli. When our vision is busy in this way, I turn to the sense of hearing to break the monotony.

Project description

Everyday people come up with a few songs in their own mind to accompany and express their mood. Sometimes we want to share this music with the people around us, with some of us going so far as to sing it out loud directly on the road to those walking by.

As music becomes more and more a part of our life these days there are more and more groups of people who practice together. This music may be vocal or instrumental, and I discovered that regardless it is necessary to have more space in Taipei for practicing. Different from practicing at home, practicing outside not only meets the need to practice itself but also inevitably leads to discussion and interaction with others. As such these practice spaces may also become a place for people use their voice for conversation and debate. However, oftentimes people wish to hide themselves away somewhere others cannot see in order to finally find the courage to express themselves to others.

Technical information

The paths in the design are ways for people to follow in order to make a detour on their travel. Even the design on site 1, the concept is to provide some interactions for the purpose of making pedestrians to decide the path they walk. and they might decide the path by hearing sounds which are created by surrounding.

In my sections drawing, there are details to support the idea which I tend to provide variety of ways for people to hear sounds from the practice room. For example, first of all, there are sound block material in the walls of the practice room, then there are several breaks to collect sounds from rooms and sound goes through the break to the specific points which are nearby seat area, picnic area, and pipe fences.