Exposition

Alarming Atmospheres - Embodied Sound Habituation as Design Strategy in a Neuro-Intensive Care Unit (2018)

Marie Koldkjær Højlund
open exposition

About this exposition

Nurses working in the Neuro-Intensive Care Unit at Aarhus University Hospital lack the tools to prepare children for the alarming atmosphere they will enter when visiting a hospitalised relative. The complex soundscape dominated by alarms and sounds from equipment is mentioned as the main stressor. As a response to this situation, our design artefact, the interactive furniture Kidkit, invites children to become accustomed to the alarming sounds sampled from the ward while they are waiting in the waiting room. Our design acknowledges how atmospheres emerge as temporal negotiations between the rhythms of the body and the environment in conjunction with our internalised perception of the habituated background. By actively controlling the sounds built into Kidkit, the child can habituate them through a process of synchronising them with her own bodily rhythms. Hereby the child can establish, in advance, a familiar relationship with the alarming sounds in the ward, enabling her to focus later more on the visit with the relative. The article discusses the proposed design strategy behind this solution and the potentiality for its use in hospital environments in general.
typeresearch exposition
keywordsSound Design, Atmospheres, Hospital, Habituation, Rhythms, Interactive Furniture
date11/01/2016
published27/06/2018
last modified27/06/2018
statuspublished
share statusprivate
licenseAll rights reserved
urlhttps://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/242240/242241
published inJournal of Sonic Studies
portal issue06. Issue 6


Simple Media

id name copyright license
242411 AudioObject2 Hojlund and Kinch All rights reserved
242408 AudioObject1 Hojlund and Kinch All rights reserved
242404 Figure 3 Hojlund and Kinch All rights reserved
242397 JSS6 Hojlund VideoObject5 Kidkit Unfolding-SD Hojlund and Kinch All rights reserved
242389 JSS6 Hojlund VideoObject4 Kidkit Wheeling-HD Hojlund and Kinch All rights reserved
242377 JSS6 Hojlund VideoObject3 kidkit Sound Triggers-SD Hojlund and Kinch All rights reserved
242373 Figure 2 Hojlund and Kinch All rights reserved
242361 JSS6 Hojlund VideoObject2 Kidkit in use-SD Hojlund and Kinch All rights reserved
242357 Figure 1 Hojlund and Kinch All rights reserved
242258 JSS6 Hojlund VideoObject1 Impression of NIA-SD Marie Højlund and Sofie Kinch All rights reserved
242250 JSS Banner research catalogue All rights reserved

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