Objective and subjective assessment of pockets of quiet inside historical urban areas

Many studies have highlighted the relationship between exposure to high noise levels and adverse health effects. Noise pollution is, for example, responsible for some detrimental psychological and physiological effects. WHO estimated that, in Western Europe, due to environmental noise the DALYs (Disability-adjusted life years) lost, and directly connected only to noise annoyance, are about 654.000 years. With this premise, urban sound planning should take into account the restoring capacities for the population that quite areas, such as urban green parks, can perform. Unfortunately, within historical city centers, these areas are generally missing and it is quite impossible to consider the design of new parks. A previous research showed that, potentially, a capillary presence inside the urban context of cloisters and courts could represent a valid alternative. The aim of this research is to analyze, with a multisensory approach, how spending time inside cloisters, courts and in general other spaces of historical and cultural value can influence the well-being of the population and compensate the noise stress in urban areas. Subjective Questionnaires, Physical Measurements and the evaluation of the Qualitative Aspects (QualiAs) of sites were carried out and statistically analyzed.