The SOUND ATLAS is a forum engaging the multiple meanings of ‘sound’ as geographical, auditory, and ethical signifier to develop post-Anthropocene methods of architectural design: [Puget] Sound-Design.
Critiquing the concept of the Anthropocene as anthropocentric, philosophers of science Donna Haraway and Vinciane Despret suggest the concept of the Phonocene, of an era devoted to the ‘earthly’ or ‘phonic ones’ thereby embracing the bio-evolutionary process of symbiosis, of ‘living-with, to learn from its techniques of ‘making-with’ and ‘sounding-with,’ of the ‘sympoetic’ and the ‚symphonic,‘ to compose forms of multispecies worldmaking. The SOUND ATLAS translates this perspective into architecture by creating a design methodology called Phono-Scenic Design. The SOUND ATLAS starts by exploring the Puget Sound, designating a coastal area of the state of Washington in the Pacific Northwest of the U.S, to deconstruct the geographical definition of ‘sound’ as a ‘body of water surrounded by land’ thereby responding to the changing relations between water and land under conditions of sea-level rise and the growing importance of wetlands, estuaries, or swamps in confronting climate change. The Atlas challenges the name as a product of colonial appropriation reminding us of its indigenous name of ‘Whulge,’ the onomatopoetic rendition of the sound of waves washing up on the beach to designate ‘a stretch of saltwater.’
Embracing this approach of listening to the land, the SOUND ATLAS explores the area’s significance as a soundscape composed of what bioacoustician Bernie Krause calls the geophony of nonbiological natural entities, the biophony of living organisms, and the anthropophony of humans. De- and re-composing the scores of the soundscape, the Atlas presents new forms of multispecies co-operation, co-habitation, and co-evolution. Following these post-colonialist and post-anthropocentric routes the SOUND ATLAS presents a methodology of Phono-Scenic Design called [Puget] Sound-Design.