Chicago is an emblematic of the many virtues and pathologies of the urban condition. To inhabit the sprawling industrial metropolis is to routinely confront myriad environmental stressors. Among them, noise pollution is increasingly cited as a causal factor of psychological deterioration. This project interrogates which practical and creative possibilities might present themselves were we to formulate a remedial architectural response.

An Ode to Apollo is a centre for research in acoustics and musical production for the creative and scientific studies of sound; a home to aesthetes and empiricists alike. Therein, a series of experimental and inhabitable musical / acoustic chambers explore the potential of interdisciplinary acoustic investigation.

Located at the intersection of an active road and the city’s elevated railway, the site is mired – acoustically speaking – by the worst the city has to offer. The periodic thunderous roar generated by passing trains stands in gross excess of levels permissible under local noise ordinance. The architecture must necessarily address this in order to function. Beyond simply attenuating, the programme’s primary hindrance is turned to an advantage. The facility celebrates and amplifies the dynamics of sound and space, whereby experimentally defined acoustic anomalies dictate a rejection of typical spatial practice. In doing so, the building identifies and exploits the physical logic underlying particular acoustic phenomena – the Doppler effect, or sympathetic resonance for example – to practically and performatively assert itself as a scientific and musical co-author. [The Bartlett School of Architecture, Architecture BSc, Year 3, 2020]