Contemporary urban planning and building design for single and multiple dwellings to be located in areas of high level noise are only now beginning to account for the planning, legal, and architectural constraints that perpetrate inadequate isolation from exterior noise at every price level. Current exterior construction and glazing techniques provide little basic isolation. Conventional penetration of the exterior for air conditioning intakes, vents, kitchen and bathroom exhausts, and attic vents would, in any case, destroy the effectiveness of a well‐designed exterior. To add to the designers problems, modern urban planning has, to date, been more concerned with social and civil engineering aspects of site evaluation. Working toward correcting this situation some planning, architectural, and engineering activity is under way. Several major airport regions and highway projects have been evaluated on a noise basis as part of the planning. Among architectural ideas that have been developed are wall systems. These include cavity walls of medium density block, fenestration designs for a high‐rise as well as single‐family housing using a minimum of exposed glass for maximum light, and roof designs that optimize acoustical isolation in thermally appropriate exterior systems. Finally, control of inadvertant penetrations of the building combined with operable closures that really close, can, along with the other measures cited, improve interior isolation 15 and possibly 20–25 dB over conventional building design.