2400 Sq Foot Studio, $40,000 Budget. How's this Layout?

I'm building a 2,400 square foot studio on the 3rd floor of a business building in Baltimore. I've uploaded an image of a design sketch I created in Photoshop. The short Version: I'm looking for feedback on the actual layout and design--room shapes and dimensions. SOME NOTES: --The entire 3rd floor space is represented by the outermost rectangle, and that is 2400 sq feet. Live room ceiling will be approx 13 ft, most other rooms will slope from 9ft to 8ft. --There are a number of pillars not represented; however, my understanding is that they can be shifted into place and some of them removed once load bearing walls are constructed, so for now I'm being optimistic and leaving them out. --The things that can't move are: the outermost rectangle, the stairs, and the HVAC. Other than that, its a skeleton with plywood floors, brick walls, and ceiling joists. --The "W" stands for window (window box not necessarily to scale, just a marker) and the "D" stand for door (door box also not to scale.) --We have office space + bathroom on the second floor, so there's no need for one in my current layout. --I have investors, so my budget is decent -- I'm estimating that I can unlock between $30 and $40k for this, and I intend to do a lot of the work myself. SOUND PROOFING AND TREATMENT - QUICK OVERVIEW I've done my research about sound proofing, and I'm planning on using decoupled / double stud walls with double layer 1/2 inch drywall on each side, dampened with green glue. You'll see I'm also using a hallway system with no direct access doors from room to room, to help with sound separation. Doors will be high mass and tightly sealed. All windows will be double paned -- planning on 1/2 inch plate + 3/8 inch laminate. After I get a sense of the modal resonances of each space and the decay rate across the spectrum, I intend to create a modular system of perforated panel absorbers and high frequency absorption panels, along with some primitive root diffusers, distributed strategically around each room based on the needs of the room and its desired decay rate. MAIN QUESTION The main reason for this post is to get feedback on the layout itself--the room shapes and dimensions, and how they connect or don't connect. My goals in design were to 1) avoid right and acute angles 2) avoid parallel surfaces 3) avoid direct access doorways 4) allow visual access to the control room from recording rooms when possible. Do any flaws or potential hickups jump out at you? Have I overlooked anything? The only weakness that I see is that the tight / variable room lacks visual access to the control room. It also might be overly wide. (Easier to tell mathematically with rectangles.) I was planning on running a basic video feed to compensate for that.

so you reckon you can build it for $16/sqft - good luck.

John, what do you expect it would cost?

approx $80 - 100/sqft.

Ok. Let's just assume for now that I can secure the funds required. Any thoughts on the layout, in terms of shapes / dimensions, and connections?

Any thoughts on the layout, in terms of shapes / dimensions, and connections?

Well, John's the man for big projects like this, so it might be better to contact him off-line for a quote on designing the studio professionally. You could PM him, or send him an e-mail. But here's my $0,02 in the meantime: The basic shapes of the rooms look roughly OK, with some caveats, but you seem to be wasting an awful lot of floor space, and I'm sure the sight lines and access paths could be better if you re-arranged things a bit. You basically have an entirely open floor space (assuming the support pillars can be re-arranged, like you said), with the only restriction being the location of HVAC system and the entry door, apparently, so I'm certain things could be arranged much better than that! For example, I would try to centralize the control room with the other rooms arranged around it, giving you sight lines direct from the console in three directions to three rooms, plus the possibility of sight lines between those rooms themselves. I would also re-think the locations of the access doors into the rooms and between rooms, as well as from the rooms to the reception area, offices, bathrooms (wherever they are!) based on your best guess of traffic flow. Right now, for example, if you want to go from the control room or the iso booth to the live room, you have a long walk ahead of you. Setting up mics in the live room is going to be a major pain like that! You'll waste more time running around the corridors than actually positioning mics ... Etc. Also, the control room shape is somewhat ambiguous, depending on what you are showing: If that's the shape after taking into account the speaker soffits and rear bass trapping, then I guess it is acceptable, but if that's the shape BEFORE soffits and trapping, then you are going to have a tough time fitting all that in, both acoustically and physically (not to mention aesthetically)! In addition, overall there seem to be lots of unnecessary angles in the design. Sure, they make the place look cool, and non-parallel walls in some rooms can help acoustically, but it also complicates construction somewhat, wastes a lot of floor space, and the parallel wall issues can be addressed with suitable acoustic treatment, correctly placed. I reckon those angles could be simplified while still retaining the overall concept. There's many possible improvements that I can see. OK, so that's my $0.02 (credit, PayPal or wire transfer, please! :) ). But like I say, for a commercial project of this nature, you might want to get the design done professionally, so drop a line to John and see what he says. I'm damn sure he'll see other things that I never noticed, and can come up with an amazing design for you! Or, if you have the time and the inclination, then you are certainly welcome to stick around on the forum, and there's a lot of folks here who can help you learn how to do this yourself! The key issue is "time". From personal experience, I know that it takes at least a couple of years of constant study (several hours per day) to get your head around the basic concepts of acoustics, isolation, studio design, HVAC, and all the rest of it, plus another year or so until you get to the point of being able to design the entire thing in full detail, with a high degree of confidence. Then comes the time needed to actually design it, and the time needed to then build the place. So if you have that amount of time before you need the studio operational, then excellent! You are in great hands here, and this forum is simply an amaaaaazing resource, that will get you where you want to go, without any doubt. I've been here for years, and I'm still discovering hidden treasures every now and then: the forum is like an iceberg: the visible part you see at first glance is only a tiny fraction of what is actually here. Plus you have a bunch of great guys here, some of whom really do know this stuff backwards, and a few more like me who are still on the learning curve. So the question is if you have the time and the inclination to learn it yourself with our help, or if not then maybe you should consider paying someone to do it for you. - Stuart -

Stuart, thanks so much for your detailed reply. Very helpful. Unfortunately, John's tied up until the new year. I've redesigned a new layout based on your suggestions. I confirmed that the HVAC blower can move, and came cross some STC60+ sliding glass doors, so instead of all the hallways taking up space, I allowed the rooms to connect more directly through pairs of sliding glass doors, which also makes the sight lines way easier. (I noticed most of the designs hosted here have that sort of thing going on.) Any thoughts? - John

Better, but why are the speakers mounted outside the control room? And why do those things marked "trap" extend beyond the dimensions of the control room? Also, you still have access issues like that: You have to go through the "tight" room to get to the iso booth. That may or may bot be OK. And going from the live room to either the tight room or the vocal booth is an an odyssey! :) So right now, all of your traffic to the iso booth and the tight room MUST go through the control room... probably not a good idea. Your engineers won't like doors opening and closing all the time, and people wandering through sessions randomly... I'd really suggest that you re-think that point. On your sliding glass doors: It's a great concept for sight-lines, and John uses them in many of his designs, but your budget is going to be strained: those things cost at least a grand apiece (for once with the right specs, acoustically), and you have four of them, so there went ten percent of your entire budget, just in those doors. If you are on a tight budget, doors and windows are an issue you need to keep under control: they are expensive! But this new concept is an improvement, for sure! - Stuart -

Stuart, again, thanks for your insights. I've come up with a third plan that addresses the access issues. Each room can be entered independently, now. Sight lines are still good, access to all of the rooms from the control is quick, access to the live room from the tight room is direct. The only maneuver with an extra hop is going from the booth to the live room, but I can live with that. I've also cut it down to one sliding door. (I've got a carpenter willing to build me my solid doors with seals at a great price, and there's a glass supplier locally who can supply my window glass at a very competitive rate as well, so using more windows and doors and less sliding doors will be a good bit cheaper for me. My $40k limit is not an absolute ceiling; I can unlock more in phases, and I have a separate budget for gear and wiring.) As far as the speakers -- I'm planning on flush mounting the loudspeakers, and then trapping bass in the cavity behind it. That's what I'm trying to represent. (I'll also have some stand-mounted nearfields closer to the console.)