During the virus pandemic, opening the windows of a building can help. But urban denizens often keep windows closed to block out city noise. Singapore, a city built on innovation, has developed a solution. A team of scientists including Masaharu Nishimura and Bhan Lam from Nanyang Technological University have developed a device that, when placed in an open window, lowers incoming sound by 10 decibels. Think noise-cancelling headphones for your apartment: the inventors call it the Anti-Noise Control Window. By 2030, 60% of the world’s people will live in cities. Megacities (urban centers of more than 10 million people) are increasing; in 1960, there were just two (New York and Tokyo), but now there are 33. That’s a lot of windows.

World’s Megacities by Population:

Tokyo, Japan – 37 million

Delhi, India – 28 million

Shanghai, China – 25 million

São Paulo, Brazil – 21 million

Mexico City – 21 million

Cairo, Egypt – 20 million

Mumbai, Inda – 20 million

Beijing, China – 19 million

Dhaka, Bangladesh – 19 million

Osaka, Japan – 19 million

New York-Newark, USA – 18 million

Karachi, Pakistan – 15 million

Buenos Aires, Argentina – 15 million

Chongqing, China – 14 million

Istanbul, Turkey – 14 million

Kolkata, India – 14 million

Manila, Philippines – 13 million

Lagos, Nigeria – 13 million

Rio de janeiro, Brazil – 13 million

Tianjin, China – 13 million

Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo – 13 million

Guangzhou, China – 12 million

Los Angeles – Long Beach – Santa Ana, USA – 12 million

Moscow, Russia – 12 million

Shenzhen, China – 11 million

Lahore, Pakistan – 11 million

Bangalore, Inda – 11 million

Paris, France – 10 million

Bogota, Colombia- 10 million

Jakarta, Indonesia – 10 million

Chennai, India – 10 million

Lima, Peru – 10 million

Bangkok, Thailand – 10 million

Source: “The World’s Cities in 2018” United Nations.

While urban windows, when open, may still have to contend with air quality and pollution, the world’s largest cities may soon have a source of breeze and quiet with this very scalable innovation.

Lam, Bhan, Dongyan Shi, Woo-Seng Gan, Stephen J. Elliott, Masaharu Nishimura. “Active control of broadband sound through the open aperture of a full-sized domestic window.” 9 July 2020, Scientific Reports 10, Article number 10021 (2020). https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-66563-z?referringSource-articleShare/

Waldstein, David. “Scientists Say You Can Cancel the Noise but Keep Your Window Open.” 11 July, The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/11/science/windows-street-noise.html/

Young, Angela “The World’s 33 Megacities.” MSN. http://a.msn.com/00/en-us/BBUaR3v?ocid-se/

Building the World Blog by Kathleen Lusk Brooke and Zoe G. Quinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unp