Study On Soundscape Effect Of Round Windows Near Winter Rockery In Ge Garden, Yangzhou

The Winter Rockery in Ge Garden, Yangzhou, was built against the wall. And it is awhite rockery made of Xuan Stone, aimed to create a snow-covered winter scene. There aretwenty-four round windows on the wall, which the rockery is leaning, and there is asouth-north oriented alley straight towards the west of the round windows. Today, manyintroductions about Ge Garden mention the soundscape effect on these round windows. Thetheory is as followed: The airflow is accelerated when blowing through the windows,creating the sound of wind and providing a vivid winter scene. Most people consider thedesign of the round windows reflects the unique acoustic beauty philosophy in Chineseclassical gardens.But there is no textual research studying on this theory so far, so it is not accurate tosee the soundscape effect of the round windows as the garden builder’s original intention.This research aim to provide a technical evidence for the textual research of roundwindows’ soundscape effect in Ge Garden, and more importantly, to provide usefulexploration on the research of soundscape in Chinese classical gardens.There are three research methods used in this paper.First, using literature textual research to search for the earliest documents on theWinter Rockery and the round windows’ soundscape effect, attempting to verify thesoundscape effect theory. The research result shows that the earliest documents on theWinter Rockery and the round windows’ soundscape effect appeared in the1960s and1980s, respectively.Second, using field measurement method, measuring the wind speed and direction onfour typical spots in the Winter Rockery area. The measurement results were used to verifythe validity of computer simulating analysis.Third, using computer simulation method to simulate the wind field feature and theaerodynamic sound in Winter Rockery area of Ge Garden, including current and historicalsituation models, which are based on the results of field mapping and literature research. Allsimulation works are carried out under three kinds of typical wind conditions in Yangzhou city respectively, the results show that current model under southeast and northeast windand historical model under northeast wind can generate the airflow blowing through theround windows, but these windows show no acceleration effect to the airflow. And thevalues of surface acoustic power level on the round windows in current and historical modelrange from0dB to6.73dB and0dB to3.93dB, respectively. Judging from experience, thegenerated aerodynamic sound should be easily masked by the background noise in mostcases. The wind field near Winter Rockery area of Ge Garden cannot meet the condition ofsoundscape creation in both models.