Walking around a city, whether it’s one you call home or a whirlwind visit, can be quite an alienating experience – yet almost always an exciting one. But imagine having a personal tour from architects and the locals.
Well, the Sound of Buildings project is the newest initiative from the Victorian State Government to promote Melbourne’s architecture and culture, with an iPhone and iPad-based application to help turn a walk around the city into a guided tour.
So far the program introduces 10 of the city’s major buildings, each with at least 3 interviews; with the architects/designers, a user of the building and a child. The application brings all these interviews, as well as galleries of images, into your hands to walk around the city and listen as you go.
Developed for the current State of Design Festival, the application downloads are already proving that the Sound of Buildings project is grabbing the attention of locals and tourists alike.
“Sound of Buildings will be a fantastic addition to the State of Design Festival and will complement the Melbourne Open House which takes place at the end of the month,” explains Major Projects Minister, Denis Napthine.
The great thing about this app is that you can download before you get to Melbourne, then listen to it on the plane before you hit the ground. It’s also a wonderful public record of the buildings and the people who use them.
“Not only do the creators and end users of the buildings speak about their experience in the Sound of Buildings tour, but in some ways, so too do the buildings themselves,” says State of Design Creative Director Kate Rhodes.
“As many of the architects note, there is carefully considered dialogue between a building, where it is located and the buildings that surround it. In addition to the individual stories behind each design and its development, there exists a ‘conversation’ between each of the buildings in this tour, across time and space.”
The application is available to download for free now from the App Store.
The Sound of Buildings
stateofdesign.com.au