Noise is the pollutant that is invisible, leaves no residue, and is rarely reported, but it slowly transforms the way we sleep, think, react, and live together
SANTO DOMINGO – In the Dominican Republic, a country steeped in sound, noise is so much a part of the everyday landscape that we hardly notice it. Car horns, engines without mufflers, corner stores, the advertising van, music blasting from early morning, construction, the neighbor on the fifth floor talking to someone on the street…
The residents are so used to it that they "don't even hear it anymore." And that normalization is precisely the problem.
Cultural diagnosis, health problem
In an academic article published by UAPA University, Dominican psychologist Frances Roulet warns that noise is the most researched pollutant from a psychological perspective, precisely because its effects on behavior and mental health are more evident than those of other atmospheric pollutants.
He also asserted that in the Dominican Republic, noise directly impacts quality of life levels, causing harmful effects on human behavior and generating serious psychological, medical, and social problems.
Clinical psychologist Rafael Román, from the Calma Alma Center, explained to local media that exposure to noise causes mood disorders, with anxiety being one of the first effects it produces.
But the World Medical Association points out that noise affects people in various ways: its effects are related to the autonomic nervous system, the psyche, oral communication, sleep and performance, and that, being a stress factor, a greater load produces greater energy consumption and more wear and tear.
And if we talk about specific symptoms, the World Health Organization points out that nighttime noise reduces the quality of rest and can cause fatigue, lower performance and long-term health problems.
The WHO also says that continuous exposure is associated with irritability, anxiety, psychological stress and reduced well-being.
A study in the Colonial City
The most unsettling thing, however, is not the noise that bothers us, but the noise that no longer bothers us. The brain learns to disregard familiar sounds, but the damage continues: mood is affected, irritability and nervousness increase, even if the person is unaware of it. In other words, we adapt to something that is harming us without realizing it.
Given this situation, the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo has been conducting a pioneering study on noise pollution in the Colonial Zone since the beginning of 2025, led by architect Héctor Castillo, PhD, from the Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, which measures the noise levels generated by vehicular traffic and indicates that in several points they already exceed the limits recommended by the World Health Organization.
The investigation is ongoing. Its results, when published, will put concrete numbers to what many Dominicans feel without really knowing why.
In the city and at home: solutions
The problem has cultural and regulatory roots that transcend any single building, but architectural design can offer concrete answers.
Experts recommend integrating acoustic comfort from the very design stage: strategically orienting spaces, locating rest areas away from noise sources, incorporating insulating materials in walls and ceilings, and adding complementary acoustic reinforcement solutions. Not as a luxury, but as a criterion for livability.
Architects Beatriz Garzón and Isabel Juárez, researchers at the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET) of Argentina and directors of the Sustainable and Healthy Habitat Group, have spent years measuring the effects of urban noise on housing and have concrete proposals.
Garzón argues that creating and living in a habitat with acoustic comfort is a collective right and obligation, and that noise pollution directly deteriorates the environmental quality, habitability, health and productivity of the inhabitants of any city.
As for solutions, his team points to urban vegetation as the main tool at city scale: to mitigate noise through vegetation, barriers at least 20 meters wide and 14 meters high should be used, formed by heterogeneous, bushy, broad-leaved, dense and evergreen trees with thick trunks and located near the source of emission.
At the regulatory level, they point out that it is essential to unify criteria regarding noise, maintaining acceptable acoustic intensity levels of between 40 and 55 decibels, with protected rest periods and clear penalties for those who violate them.
And at the scale of the building, their group's diagnosis is straightforward: high-rise housing has lacked acoustically conditioned spaces, with repercussions on the physical, mental and emotional health of users, and on the performance of activities with a notable economic and social impact.
The trend being applied in Europe is acoustic corridor projects along high-traffic roads, which combine perforated panels with vertical landscaping to reduce noise while defining the identity of the environment.
In Hamburg, for example, a residential area next to a railway line solved the problem using double facades and glazed terraces, without sacrificing aesthetics or ventilation.
Silence, in that sense, is becoming increasingly valuable. And not only in terms of well-being: investing in solutions that reduce noise pollution not only improves the experience within spaces, but also increases the value of real estate projects.
And for a sector experiencing a construction boom like the Dominican Republic, that's an argument that speaks the language of the market.
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