A spatial score shows how sound unfolds across a place.
It connects what visitors hear with where they are and how the experience changes over time. Every audible element, including interaction and silence, can become part of the same score. Within sound scenography, the spatial score turns a listening intention into a working plan for the project team.
A musical score organises music over time. A spatial score works at the scale of the whole environment.
Imagine a recorded voice in an exhibition. Up-close, visitors listen to what it says. From the corridor, the words may be less important than the voice’s location: it draws attention back to the room or keep that space present after visitors have moved on. The recording is unchanged, but the listener’s position gives it a different function.
A spatial score plans these changes of perspective. It may be drawn as a timeline, a floor plan, a matrix or a combination of several views. The form matters less than the decisions it makes visible:
Exhibitions often contain several sound sources in open or connected spaces. A spatial score maps when each source is active and how far it can be heard. This makes conflicts visible before production and helps protect speech from nearby media. It also shows where recurring material can connect parts of the route and where silence is the better choice.
The score includes what visitors hear between rooms. Machinery from the next space may already be audible in the corridor. That sound can prepare visitors for what comes next, or it can interfere with the content in front of them. The spatial score makes this audible reach part of the planning.
At KLING KLANG KLONG, we develop spatial scores while the spatial and technical planning is still open. Whenever a project spans several rooms or visitor paths, we treat the score as a standard part of our sound scenography process. It gives everyone a shared view before individual assets are produced.
In our process, the scenographic audio concept—what we call the Acoustic Blueprint—sets the overall listening strategy. The spatial score turns that strategy into a working document by mapping sound against the visitor route and the timing of the experience.
The resulting structure leaves room for different visitor paths while keeping the experience coherent.
MINESET
At MINESET, an 18-minute incident unfolds across several buildings and rooms of the former coal mine in Beringen. Visitors may hear machinery, voices or alarms directly, from a distance or before they reach the source. One timeline becomes a story distributed through architecture.
YOU ARE PART OF THE History
The permanent exhibition at the The House of History Bonn contains more than sixty media exhibits in an open environment. The spatial score coordinates interface sounds, media audio, modular music, room tones and acoustic zones so that the exhibition remains legible without losing its sonic identity.
Luxembourg Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai
Six orchestral compositions unfold in synchrony across the pavilion. Each chapter has its own theme and character, while a shared key and temporal structure keep the musical worlds connected.
Luxembourg and German Pavilions at Expo 2025 Osaka
In these pavilion projects, musical ideas return in different forms: as a full theme, a harmonic colour, a transition or a small interaction sound. The spatial score lets those variations belong to one larger identity.
Research Wall, Humboldt Forum Berlin
At Research Wall, sound, physical movement and visual media form a continuously changing installation. The score helps several streams of information coexist without losing rhythm or clarity.
Related practices
Spatial Score is a core method within Sound Scenography. It connects directly to Spatial Audio, Immersive Sound, Exhibition Sound Design, Interactive Sound, Generative Sound and Data Sonification.
Technical Notes
At KLING KLANG KLONG, the spatial score remains the reference as a project moves from concept into production and playback. These Technical Notes show how we carry that spatial intention into the installed experience:
What is a spatial score?
A spatial score plans how sound unfolds across time, architecture, media and visitor movement.
Is it the same as a musical score?
No. A musical score organises musical material. A spatial score can include music, but also voices, ambiences, interaction, media audio, physical sound sources and silence across an entire environment.
Does a spatial score always need a timeline?
It needs a temporal logic, but not necessarily one fixed sequence. Interactive and generative systems still have timing: conditions for when something can happen, how long it lasts and what it may overlap with.
How is a spatial score different from spatial audio?
Spatial audio refers to the technical placement and movement of sound in space. By contrast, a spatial score is the dramaturgical blueprint that dictates when and why these techniques are applied across an entire experience.
When should it be developed?
Early, together with architecture, scenography, media planning, visitor flow and dramaturgy. That is when the score can still influence the space rather than merely fit into it.
Planning an exhibition, museum or spatial experience?
We design spatial scores that connect sound, architecture, media and visitor movement into one coherent sonic experience.
