Design Questions - live/rehearsal room - Vienna

Hi all, I'm happy to introduce a room I will build my first own 'playground' in. What it should became: A live room for recording my own stuff and in between for renting it to musicians/bands as a rehearsal room. Budget: ~10.000eur (15.000 with heating, cooling, ventilation,...) Some information about the room:(pics below) Location It is at ground-level in a block in the city, but there is a cellar (arch) underneath .

Adjacencies:
• In the cellar directly below my room I've seen a big wood-working machine...will make a lot of noise when I record silent things!
• Diagonally downwards there is a conference room of the neighbouring company...will have a meeting when I record loud things!
• On two sides the company (working until 6pm)
• One side is to my other room (maybe a small control room in some years)
• One side is an adjacent house. There have to be two disconnected thick (fire-proofed) walls (by law)
• The biggest problem I think (lowest STC) will be the wooden beam ceiling (with plaster) to the flat above.

Dimensions (LxWxH) ~ 6m x 5m x 4.8m ~ 20ft x 17ft x 15ft (The height was the crucial factor to buy this room). What I did until now: I did a rough calculation of the weight of a inner room for this space (10-15to) => a structural engineer gave me the ok after a first inspection of my rooms and the cellar. What I'm doing/thinking about now Now I have to develop a detailed plan for sound insulation, heating, cooling, ventilation, wiring and so on and would greatly appreciate any support :) What to do with the ceiling?! My first consideration is, how I can use this wonderful height best. I don't want to save all that volume for the inner room.

I think it would be great to have
• as much space as possible to the upper/outer ceilling.
• most of the absorption on the ceiling. Firstly because of better acoustics (side-reflection vs ceiling reflection), secondly to save the space on the floor.
• to have a high inner room...good air, good acoustics, good looking...

The problem with this is, I will have a lot of weight on my inner ceiling and a span of ~5m (~17ft) without supporting it from the wooden ceilling above. Maybe, its an idea to build a rafter-roof / couple roof (I hope it's the right translation for the german "Sparrendach") or a collar-beam roof (Kehlbalkendach). Some thoughts about this: The inner ceiling and the outer ceiling wouldn't be parallel. That could be good (axial modes) or bad (sound insulation decreases with the angle of incidence). I did a first sketchup drawing with this idea. Wall height is 3m. Roof 30°. A lot of absoption could happen between the rafters. Without the suspension from above I have to be careful with the load. Its not calculated now, but although I need 3 beams for the triangle the rafters can be less thick (or in greater distance/or both) than horizontal joists. This point in conjunction with the lower walls (3m) could be a cost-saver without loosing all the volume above 3m. Floating Floor?! The conference room and the machine below me and possible flanking to my sides makes me think about a possible floating floor. The structural engineer told me that typical arches have earth on top. Maybe 10cm (some tons) could be removed and a floated concrete slab could be made without getting a high stair. Sounds like an option to me but I would be happy to hear your thoughts. How to measure?! In october I will get the keys and would be happy to make some measurments after removing the existing planking. I thought about aksing the company and the above neighbours to measure while playing drums and bass and some sweeps in the room. I also think about knock, knock, knocking on andys floooor to get an idea of flanking. Though i don't know whether it tells me a lot without the standardized hammer machine. OK. Thank you for reading my beginnings. I hope anybody can help me with my thoughts. Best regards Andy

Hai! Good introduction, thanx. I'm only gonna say "why not keep the, sloped(!), height of the room as it is.. somehow". What I mean is, you can make use of it by NOT adding a second ceiling parallel to the floor. What you might do is; add mass to the roof. Add another, inner, ceiling parallel to the sloped roof and hang some absorbers in the room it self at the top of the roof. Or have hangers in between the 2 ceilings, but keep the inner ceiling angled as much as possible. Will enhance acoustics. Check this viewtopic.php?f=1&t=13595 also.... nice plans, keep them designs comming!

Ro wrote:

Hai! I'm only gonna say "why not keep the, sloped(!), height of the room as it is.. somehow". What I mean is, you can make use of it by NOT adding a second ceiling parallel to the floor.

Hi Ro, thanks alot for your answer!! :!: The existing ceiling is parallel to the floor :!: . (It is the floor to the described flat above). I add a picture with the inner room inside the outer. My main reason for the idea to slope my inner ceiling, were the lower inner walls (= lower costs/easier build) by saving half of the volume above the wall height. I would be very interessted in some opinions about the influence of this sloped ceiling under a flat floor. I would not be surprised if this could have a little bit higher STC because of the non-parallel areas. but... I would not be surprised if this could have a little bit lower STC because of possible bending waves. Like I said...sound insulation decreases with the angle of incidence.

Ro wrote:

What you might do is; add mass to the roof.

I think about adding mass to the floor above. But I think, that will not be possible without adding (outer)wall-based joists. I think that will be a knock out for my budget.

Ro wrote:

nice plans, keep them designs comming!

I'm very glad you said this. :yahoo: I thought its total crap because of the lack of answers.

ah, now I get it. The existing structure has a flat roof. In that case your initial plans weren't even that bad ;) Adding an inner room with a ceiling like that looks like a cool plan. Tho you can gain some extra height by lessening the angle of the room. Adding hangers is a great idea, but I'd add them between the existing and new ceiling (bass absorption) and also add wool in the inner frame, flush against the to-be-added GB. Then you have a free space in your room where you might add a cloud or two with light insets for example.

Ro wrote:

ah, now I get it. The existing structure has a flat roof. In that case your initial plans weren't even that bad ;) Adding an inner room with a ceiling like that looks like a cool plan.

Thx! 8) You help me alot with these words.

Ro wrote:

Tho you can gain some extra height by lessening the angle of the room.

One of the books I took from the library is a wood construction handbook. With an angle under 30° I would need a strong horizontal joist in the roofs ridge to carry the load of the rafters in the middle. 30° is the lower limit for such a couple roof with sexy tie beams.

Ro wrote:

Adding hangers is a great idea, but I'd add them between the existing and new ceiling (bass absorption) and also add wool in the inner frame, flush against the to-be-added GB.

You mean for a higher sound transmission index? I just ask because my hangers in the sketchup file were meant for room acoustics. But certainly sound insulation will also be added in the cavity between the leafs.

Ro wrote:

Then you have a free space in your room where you might add a cloud or two with light insets for example.

At the moment I mainly think about the right form of my inner leaf (concerning money and build time as well as a bit mode distribution). Thanks for your thoughts! Also the lack of other opinions against my sloped roof under a flat ceiling makes me believe, that the idea is not so bad.

Hi again :) , time moves fast... most of the things that were inside the room has been removed... I think about the 'normal' way of building my inner leaf now. A flat instead of the sloped ceiling described in my older posts. Simply because I think it will be simpler to build for someone like me/us. Less weight of single parts to lift up. Now I'm wondering how I could build this inner ceiling. I thought about dividing the ceiling by a steel beam or a glued-laminated timber. The span ~16ft x ~19ft 3layers of gypsum (1,6to!!) Is there anything to say against a steel beam? regards andy

OK, seems like there is no real pro/contra steel/wood. Another question: Have you ever laid a 135kg beam 4m up on pillars? Because of the ceiling above there is no real space for a crane. Any ideas to lift it up? forklift? Small enough to drive through a 1,5m door and lift something that heavy 4m? best regards Andy

Have you ever laid a 135kg beam 4m up on pillars? Because of the ceiling above there is no real space for a crane. Any ideas to lift it up?

Four friends 2 meters tall, a few ladders, and a lot of beer?

I will consider that :wink:

are you sure you need a steel beam - it's not supporting a floor above, only the rafters and dry wall. I reckon an 8' x 3' or a 10' x 2' would do it.

Hi again, thanks John for your tip, thank you all for reading :) It's a pity that my time is so short. But I want to have a finished plan in my head that I'm really confident with before I start to buy materials and so it grows very slow. After the newest redesign of my sketchup-file the framing is now pretty much the common way to build. (?!) Nevertheless I would be happy to read your opinions about that. The joists are 24x8cm (~9,4" x 3,1"). I've calculated that those would carry a load of 5cm (~2") drywall(~1200kg) PLUS 200kg/m2 (~5600kg) with ease.Even 24x6cm would be adequate with the 62,5cm center to center. Thats the calculation structural engineers would do, but what do you say taking studio build practice into account? (A structural engineer will calculate it once again later on to be save (insurance)). The two more 'complex' walls To see it all. The 2 walls supporting the ceiling have 14x8cm (~5,5" x 3,1") stands. The other 2 walls 14x6cm (~5,5" x 2,4"). best regards andy

I forgot: the huge entry is left empty at the moment. I'm searching for possibilities to build/buy a sliding door. I have some ideas to build one, and will write another post concerning this. Another thing: Is it still better to resize pictures to a maximum width of 700pix?