Recent Editorial policy for Building Acoustics: a first balance and future perspectives

Abstract

It was exactly three years ago – in March 2017 – when I wrote the Editorial “New challenges in Building Acoustics”, officially my first Editorial after having taken the position of Editor in Chief of the Journal at the end of 2016. It is a great honour to serve as Editor in Chief of such a “historical” international journal, being published since the early 90’s, the only one specifically devoted to acoustical aspects of buildings and for this reason I tried to do my best to improve the impact and visibility of Building Acoustics. Since then, the Journal has experienced a constant growth as far as submissions and has confirmed its reputation in the international context as the main publishing option for authors writing on building acoustics and related topics. I would like to thank SAGE, one of the most important publishing companies in the world, for the continuous and professional support and the whole Editorial Board of the Journal, which has been enriched in these years with new members from different countries. Building Acoustics can now count on 21 members: they are all recognized leading scientists, covering different geographic areas and all the research fields of building acoustics, including two Associate Editors, Micheal Kingan and Louena Shtrepi. In particular, Louena, who has just joined the Board, is a young and brilliant researcher in the field of room acoustics and I am sure that her contribution will be valuable. Some figures can be useful to understand the growth of the Journal. The submitted papers have passed from 33 of 2016 to 104 of 2019, with authors from more than 20 different countries. Every issue has been regularly published, while in previous years some issues were coupled because of a lack of papers. The number of “online first” papers, which are queuing before being published, has increased. The number of visits has increased of about 30% and the number of page views of about 20% in the period 2017-2019. The three most downloaded papers of all times belong to the same period. Various Special Issues have also characterized these recent years A first Special Issue was dedicated in 2018 to Soundscapes of buildings and built environments. The term soundscape has been defined by the ISO 12913 standard as “[the] acoustic environment as perceived or experienced and/or understood by a person or people, in context”. In recent years researchers and practitioners have shown an increasing interest for the assessment and management of both outdoor and indoor acoustic environment from a perceptual point of view. While much soundscape research has been conducted at a relatively large urban scale (e.g., urban parks, residential districts), the concept also applies to smaller contexts, such as streets, buildings or indoor public spaces. Submissions were related to soundscapes of indoor spaces, soundscape assessment and design for large buildings, acoustic comfort in public buildings (e.g., public libraries, museums, shopping malls, public transport stations), effects of buildings and building elements on indoor and outdoor 920959 BUA0010.1177/1351010X20920959 editorial2020