The cities of southern Europe are traditionally considered to be particularly noisy compared to their northern counterparts. Thus Madrid, with its dual character of being a Mediterranean city and a major urban centre, is depicted both in official reports and the general interest media as one of the noisiest cities in Europe. To study the acoustic environment in all its facets, we have to go beyond the type of quantitative, correlational approach used to date in Spain and develop a new, qualitative line of analysis which takes into account not just the acoustic variables but also the context in which they arise and the cognitive processes involved in acoustic evaluation.  The project has a dual aim

First: to identify those places situations and contexts within the city which possess certain sonic characteristics and second: to determine people's perceptual evaluation related to physical, spatial and psychosocial variables.  The methodology applied in this project is based on the work of the Creson team at the University of Grenoble in their noise environment study and specifically, on P. Amhpoux' research into the acoustic quality of Switzerland's cities (1991).
   
This method seeks to integrate three types of variables: acoustic architectural and psychosocial. The initial results of this project show that noise level is not the only variable determining subjective response to the sound environment. The degree of congruence between sound and the context in which it is produced plays and important part in defining the subjective response. Moreover, the sounds heard in a given context are influenced by how such a context is designed. The design then defines how a space can be utilized and this, in turn, defines the acoustic atmosphere.