19 Edda Bild PhD, Urban auditory experience / Québec
A conversation with soundscape researcher Edda Bild about urban sounds, why they matter in an urban context and city strategies to manage it for better urban living.
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19 Edda Bild PhD, Urban auditory experience / Québec
Biography:
Dr. Edda Bild is currently a research associate at the Institute for Work & Health, working on a project looking at the workplace safety of newcomers to Canada in the context of increasing linguistic and cultural diversity in the workplace.
Bild is a qualitative researcher with experience working on public health, with a focus on the everyday experiences of diverse urban populations and a broader interest in knowledge transfer and public outreach and education. Before joining the Institute in July 2023, she worked for four years as a postdoctoral fellow and lead soundscape researcher and educator in the Sounds in the City team at McGill University – where she is still active as a collaborator
Bild completed her PhD at the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Amsterdam in 2019. Prior to her PhD, she trained in sociology and political sciences and holds a joint master’s degree in international migration and social cohesion.
Source: https://iwh.on.ca/people/edda-bild
Education:
University of Amsterdam, PhD
PhD title "The urban auditory experience: linking uses, users and environments".
University of Amsterdam & Deusto, MSc
MISOCO (Interdisciplinary Research Master in Sociology, Anthropology and Political Science)
University of Bucharest, BA Political Sciences
Romanian-American University, BA International Business
Workplace: Institute for Work and Health, Toronto (Ontario)
Current living city: Montreal (Québec).
Web:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/edda-bild/
Websites of interest:
Sounds in the City partnership official website
https://www.sounds-in-the-city.org/[EB1]
The Rest Is Just Noise
https://www.justnoisepod.com/
Publications:
Books (chapters):
· Bild, E., Huijsman, M. & Zentschnig, R. (2020). Sound as city maker: developing a participatory-collaborative process to work with sound as an urban resource. The case of Mr. Visserplein (Amsterdam, NL). In Bull, M. & Cobussen, M. (Eds.) Bloomsbury Handbook of Sonic Methodologies. Bloomsbury Press.
· Bild, E., Steele, D., Pfeffer, K., Guastavino, C. & Bertolini, L. (2018). Activity as a Mediator between Users and their Auditory Environment in an Urban Pocket Park: A Case Study of Parc du Portugal (Montreal, CA). In Aletta, F. & Xiao, J. (Eds.) Perception-driven approaches to urban assessment and design. IGI Global.
Papers (selected):
o Bild, E., Steele, D. & Guastavino, C. (2024). Supporting the Living Laboratory: A Literature Review of Montreal Sound-Related Research, Journal of Planning Literature (1): 16.
o Bild, E., Steele, D. & Guastavino C. (2022). Festivals and events as everyday life in Montreal’s entertainment district. Sustainability 14(8), 4559. Special issue on Designing Sustainable Urban Soundscapes. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14084559
Media engagement:
1. Guest speaker podcasts:
• Jul 2024: “The Show” with Mark Brodie: “How the way a city sounds can shape the way we live”
• Aug 2022: “CANADALAND: #806 Sh*tty Cities: What might better, more sustainable cities look (and sound) like?”
• Apr 2020: “The Rest is Just Noise”, “Musikiosk, Misters, and More! with Dan Steele and Edda Bild”
2. Expert interviews:
• Chapter 5: “The Hearing City”, in Bruntlett, C., & Bruntlett, M. (2021). Curbing Traffic: The Human Case for Fewer Cars in Our Lives. Island Press.
• “L’environnement sonore de Montréal : création d’un partenariat multidisciplinaire” – public communication video sponsored by the City of Montreal (French): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIZXHU7sKb4&t=11s&ab_channel=MultimodalInteractionLab
• “Écoutez Montréal : les ambiances sonores au centre-ville | Listen up Montreal: downtown soundscapes” – public communication video sponsored by the City of Montreal (French)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-U8tPuLCQE&t=3s&ab_channel=MultimodalInteractionLab
3. Op-eds & other contributions:
• Bild, Edda, Cynthia Tarlao, Catherine Guastavino, and Caroline Stamm. “Why should you care about sound? An introduction for urban practitioners to making cities sound better”. Trilingual op-ed (“Pourquoi se préoccuper du sonore? / ¿ Por qué deberías preocuparte por lo sonoro?"). Issue #55: Health, City and Architecture, of the Notas CPAU magazine (published by El Consejo Profesional de Arquitectura y Urbanismo / Architecture and Urbanism Professional Council of the City of Buenos Aires, Argentina)
Key words:
Soundscape, soundscape design, urban design, public space, urban planning, Montreal
Episode production:
Soundscapes by Edda Bild.
Theme music by Sebastian Carreras ONDO, uno. Used with permission.
Art direction by estudiocinco.cl
Edition by sombraurbana.com
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April ‘25