This article was taken from the July 2014 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by <span class="s1">subscribing online.
No one wants to live near a runway, but you definitely don't want to live by Amsterdam's Schiphol airport. It's the fourth-busiest in Europe, and it's in what might be the least soundproof place on Earth: a cold, wide-open flatland where noise can travel unobstructed for kilometres. Which is why these mysterious-looking formations appeared in the area last year.
After researchers discovered that things got quieter whenever nearby farmers ploughed their fields, they hired landscape artist Paul de Kort to design a peculiar kind of park. Its pattern of noise-deflecting ridges -- built with GPS-guided robot excavators -- intercepts the sound waves generated by arriving and departing aircraft and bounces them skywards. The airport has agreed to reduce noise levels by ten decibels; this park gets almost halfway there, and there's a plan to nearly double the size of the
grooved landscape. Hear hear!
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
