Hello all!
For context, I live in upstate NY. I'm a musician, but not an engineer. Nevertheless, I've always wanted a private studio. I've been fortunate enough to come into ownership of a 30 ft by 40 ft (ish) commercial property on a concrete slab with no neighbors closer than 100ft. Approximately 75 feet from a moderately busy road. It's divided into approximate 3rds, however no interior walls are load bearing, and as such I effectively have a clean palate in front of me for studio design and I've begun the (very) slow process of planning and design, which unfortunately includes more education than I'd originally planned on.
As I'm looking into isolation issues, I was curious about the isolation, absorption, and reflective properties of strawbale construction coated with an earthen plaster, used in a non-loadbearing capacity? Basically as a room in room concept. I know it's an unusual material, but has anyone worked with it before? I've not had great success in finding much information about anything but it's R values, but those are encouragingly high. I couldn't help but wonder whether the relatively large mass and unusually large number of minute air spaces would be beneficial in a studio application, or whether it has some less desirable characteristics acoustically? There's certainly some good characteristics on the financial and "do it yourself" end. Does anyone here have any information on this application? If not, I'm probably going to have to go with more standard materials, as I have neither the education nor the finances to be the first to test new materials.
Properties of an unusual construction material
Originally posted at johnlsayers.com, topic 17561.
Drop the question. Enough time using the search feature has found the answers I'm looking for already present in these forums. Thanks guys!