The Influence of Temporal Variations on the Perception of High Street Soundscapes Across Grey, Green, and Blue Typologies

Daily and weekly variations shape how people perceive streetscapes. These environments typically include vegetation, built form, and water features, which provide a basis for classifying high streets into grey, green, and blue typologies. Street typologies were classified based on observed environmental characteristics using a structured framework. This study aims to investigate how day-of-week and time-of-day variations shape soundscape perception — specifically dimensions of eventfulness, pleasantness, vibrancy, and calmness — across grey, green, and blue high-street typologies in London, to inform temporally responsive design strategies. To address this, data were collected at sites in Chelsea and Camden through 10 autonomous soundwalk groups across nine specified locations. The acoustic and perceptual data were analysed using the Kruskal–Wallis and Mann–Whitney U nonparametric tests, which are appropriate for non-normally distributed perceptual data.

Overall, the results indicate that temporal differences—particularly day-of-week and time-of-day—affect how grey, green, and blue high streets are perceived. In grey locations, weekend sound atmospheres are perceived as more vibrant. In green locations, weekends are perceived as calmer and quieter than weekdays, while weekday soundscapes are perceived as more chaotic. From an hourly perspective, grey locations are perceived differently throughout the day, with early hours perceived as more pleasant and vibrant. Mann–Whitney U test results also suggest that, in green spaces, early hours are perceived as more uneventful, calm, and monotonous, whereas later in the day increased people and traffic sounds are associated with higher perceived eventfulness and chaos. These findings suggest that high-street design should incorporate temporally responsive soundscape and environmental design approaches, rather than relying solely on static interventions.