Quiet City for Life Quality: towards sustainable urban living
How can we create quieter, healthier, and more sustainable cities? The Unite! seed fund project Quiet City for Life Quality (Q-Q City) aims to make it possible.
Noise pollution remains one of the most pressing environmental challenges in modern cities, affecting health, wellbeing, and overall quality of life. Researchers from TU Graz, Politecnico di Torino, KTH Stockholm, Aalto University, UPC, and TU Darmstadt are driving a research project that directly contributes to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 11 – Sustainable Cities and Communities, by developing strategies to make cities more inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable.
By focusing on the newest vibroacoustic technologies—including metamaterials and bio-based materials—the project will prepare a roadmap for noise and vibration control solutions that address the entire chain: from noise sources to propagation paths to human receivers. Immersive audio-visual demonstrations will help translate research into actionable insights, making the benefits of new technologies tangible to citizens and decision-makers.
A collaborative foundation across six countries
Q-Q City brings together partners from Austria, Finland, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Sweden, each contributing specialised expertise and research facilities. This collaboration will serve as a blueprint for local action that can be scaled to a European level. The project’s implementation rests on a strong ecosystem of laboratories, experimental platforms, and interdisciplinary competences, ensuring that solutions move from the laboratory to policy application.
The Q-Q City project aims to promote sustainable urban living by developing strategies that protect citizens from harmful noise and improve quality of life. At the same time, it strengthens the Unite! network in acoustics by fostering collaboration among experts from engineering, physics, architecture, and urban planning.
"Noise knows no borders — but together, we can create a quieter future. Through strong collaboration across Europe’s leading technical universities and experts, our consortium unites to work on Europe's Quiet City for Life Quality“
The project also supports the next generation of researchers and students through exchanges, master’s and PhD projects, and experimental proof-of-concept activities, while laying the groundwork for future joint funding opportunities and large-scale collaborative initiatives across Europe.
Looking beyond
Q-Q City’s impact will extend beyond its six founding partners, involving other Unite! universities and reaching into the broader international research community. Planned disseminations include academic-industry-policy workshops and dedicated sessions at major events such as the “Forum Acusticum 2026” in Graz, Austria.
Project members
- Christian Adams, Professor at the Institute for Electrical and Information Engineering, TU Graz, Overall Coordinator
- Louena Shtrepi, Associate Professor for Building Physics, Politecnico di Torino
- Elias Zea, Assistant Professor, Engineering Acoustics, KTH Royal Institute of Technology
- Tapio Lokki, Professor, Acoustics Lab, Department of Information and Communications Engineering, Aalto University
- Robert Arcos, Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Acoustical and Mechanical Engineering Laboratory, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya
- Robert Feldmann, Senior Researcher (tenured), Department of Mechanical Engineering, Research Group System Reliability, Adaptive Systems and Machine Acoustics, TU Darmstadt