Our original concept was to review pubs through the medium of sound rather than a traditional written review. We decided to compare and review a pub from each area of London (North, South, East, West) and also evaluate their role within that area as a third spaces and community hubs. We were going to compare the pubs by making recordings with geophones and hydrophones to record the ‘sound’ of the pubs and effectively create soundscapes to serve as a background for interviews.  

For example, using a hydrophone we were planning on recording things such as the pouring of drinks, or using a geophone to record the footsteps of the people inside the pub. We felt this would be an interesting way to measure different aspects of the space without going down a traditional route.   

We did have to try and decide on the best time to make our recordings as pubs are both places of work but also places where people want to relax, and no doubt not wanting to be pestered by students asking for interviews for a student project. We settled on the late afternoon/early evening period to avoid a busy rush but also not to record an empty pub.  

The aim of this project would’ve been to successfully review/evaluate four pubs by taking a slightly avant garde approach to sound. Instead of writing a regular review with a few interviews, we were aiming to focus more on the overall sound of the space and to use different kinds of microphones to capture this, these sound recordings would serve as the canvas for the recorded audio from interviews.