Episode 8: TRANSFORMING CONSTRUCTION WITH SOUND DESIGN - Mike Jacob - Kiss House Artwork

The Quiet Mark Podcast

Welcome to The Quiet Mark Podcast. Hosted by Simon Gosling CMO at Quiet Mark, the global award programme associated with the UK Noise Abatement Society, this series uniquely explores the vital role acoustics will play in the future of global living, building and product design sharing conversations with thought-leading designers, architects, and sound experts. The World Health Organization (WHO) recognises environmental noise as the 2nd largest environmental health risk in Western Europe after air quality. Noise contributes to a range of physical and mental health problems, disturbed sleep, affects people’s hearing, communication and learning. And, in our smart-phone era, noise isn’t only about the big sounds of planes, traffic and construction sites, smaller sounds like someone FaceTiming on the bus or playing music loudly through their tinny headphones can cause stress, annoyance and impacts our mental health. During this time of Lockdown our world is much quieter than usual, every sound is more noticeable, quietness has never seemed more important or front of mind, where could this take us and how will we live, build, and work after this profound period of change? To help navigate the world-changes around us, these exclusive insights into pioneering projects and visions, explore the future on the other side of the crisis.

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The Quiet Mark Podcast

Episode 8: TRANSFORMING CONSTRUCTION WITH SOUND DESIGN - Mike Jacob - Kiss House

August 18, 2020 • Quiet Mark

Together, building and construction are responsible for 39% of all carbon emissions in the world, and alongside air traffic and road traffic, construction is one of the biggest sources of noise pollution.

Does it have to be this way? One man who believes construction could be quieter and more sustainable, and whose company is determined to make it so, is Kiss House Co-Founder, Mike Jacob; our guest on Episode 8 of The Quiet Mark Podcast. Kiss House’s motto is simple. Build Better. Live Better.

In 2018 The World Health Organization calculated that at least 1m healthy life-years are lost every year in western European countries because of environmental noise, with cardiovascular disease contributing to the vast majority of these deaths, especially high blood pressure, heart attacks and coronary heart disease. It is thought that noise triggers the release of the stress hormone cortisol, which damages blood vessels over time.

A wave of silence has spread across the planet as man-made noise fell by 50% during worldwide coronavirus lockdowns. Does a return to a new normality necessarily have to bring with it a return to pre-lockdown volume levels?

Air traffic has reduced with less vacation travel and global business meetings increasingly taking place on Zoom and other video call platforms.

With companies such as Google telling employees to stay home until summer 2021, and Twitter announcing that employees could work from home indefinitely, comes a significant reduction in road traffic, with vast numbers of people no longer doing the daily commute.

But what about noise from construction? The number of new homes registered to be built per annum in the UK has risen by more than 80 per cent over the last decade. Ground-working is an especially noisy process, but could much of that be carried out in remote factories, away from neighbourhoods?

Mike discusses this and more with our host, Simon Gosling, explaining the path that lead to Kiss House and their work to disrupt the future of construction, transforming the lives of occupants, for the better.

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Simon Gosling

Host