studio outline in Sketchup.. any help?

Hi there one and all. I've knocked up a quick sketch of the room dimensions of a new area that I have been offered to put a new studio in. It's rediculously cheap rent and there are loads of assured clients very near by so I'm very anxious to make it work.... so without further ado.. here's the todo.. I have two distinct areas that I'm looking to use. the middle room would be the Live room (in my eyes) the area not labelled 'other office space' would be the control room. I'm on the second floor of a two storey building. The construction is not complete, but the floor I'm on is made of 30cm of concrete and it can withstand the load of a 10cm floating concrete floor. Which I feel I will need in order to stop low frequencies passing through the structure.. I then need to look at suitable wall and cieling isolation measures.. I will also need some Control room isolation and acoustic design.. any ideas? or possible things I've missed that will make this rather large build project a lot simpler? The windows are a pain in the rectum! I'm not sure what to do with them, whether to cover them up or whether I can somehow incorporate them. Paul P.s - the sketchup file is here : - www.pure-audio.co.uk/paul/studio/studio_outline.skp

I dont have sketchup, so if you could post an overhead outline of your space we can draw out possible layouts. Fill

sure! thanks for even looking. Paul

Aloha Paul, Any chance you could resize the pic, please? (FWIW, forum guideline) Aloha 8)

done with pleasure. apologies. Paul

This is my first idea for the studio.. I'm concerned that the windows are going to be a problem. (I've got a thread in the construction forum too about the windows). I appreciate you guys are very busy. But the site is just being built and I'd like to get a plan together as soon as possible so that I can prevent them doing a poor job with the Drywalls (as they are putting a normal office type rocwall in first as part of the original build) if it's possible to make mistakes that will hinder my future inner room I'd like to know about it. Also, to hit the ground running as soon as the construction is complete with the adaptation to the studio. I apologise for using paint.. I'm at work and just had to get things down on paper.. Ill update this image first opportunity. Paul

Paul- I was looking along these lines .skp file here cheers john

John, flippin heck, you do an amazing amount of work! that looks really good, although my first statements were a bit of a double bind.

I have two distinct areas that I'm looking to use. the middle room would be the Live room (in my eyes) the area not labelled 'other office space' would be the control room.

I meant the room the other side of the one you've magically transformed into a great room! (the office labelled other office space is being rented to another company) my fault for not being very clear.. hence, a lot more problems (potentially) with the windows. Although your design seems to completely negate the window that was in the room which is actually a very cool approach. I could apply that to the other room too.. Let's say I apply a very similar strategy, but flip it over to the other room.. I'm intrigued by the doorway entrance thing. I presume that it is because Doors are for the most part the weakest part of the system and therefore by isolating the entrance within a tiny corridor you get a double door into an isolated space with another door... Ingenius! ingenius I tell ya.. Thanks jon.. I simply would never have thought of that... (keeps repeating ingenius to himself..) Paul

I'm just working on this again... are the measurements pretty much actual? ie could I build from these dimensions? can i change the that front and back wall length without completely messing up the room. ie can I transfer this design to the other room (which has the same length) and only adjust the front and back wall length? thanks for all your help so far.. Paul

as if by some wizardry, the owners have agreed to give me the space that John did a design for! crazy.. (actually dimensions have shifted slightly, but I can now work with that design!) I have been looking at wiring/Cabling and I need some help I think. (This stuff has moved to the electrical/cabling forum on this site) thanks for all your help so far.. Paul

Hi all. I've had the contractor look over the initial plans. He has told me several things: 1. The area in johns plan used as the entrance acts as a lobby and therefore has to be of a certain size (ie 2m wide) in order to comply with current UK building codes. 2. Because the area that the doors are accessed from (in the original office plan) is a lobby, the doors cannot open outwards due to fire regulations. (this means the doors on my original plan were wrong as I read the direction of door openings incorrectly) This obviously leaves me in a bit of a hole.. a) I can't really afford to have a 2m squared block taken out of my live room for the lobby. b) How can I maintain a two leaf design if the doors won't open outwards, plus, theirs not enough clearance on one of them to have a sliding door? c) How can I manipulate johns design to incorporate a door in it's position on the original drawing? d) Are the building regulations really that severe that I can't find a way to meet them? Any help would be appreciated as I'm really stressing over this most recent information. Paul

Yeah, the "exit doors must swing out" thing is true here too, for commercial spaces. In a panic, people push doors open to exit, even if they're supposed to be pulled inward. When there's a stampede of people rushing to exit, it's impossible to get the mass of people to step back to allow the door to swing open. That's one of the things that happened in The Station (West Warwick, Rhode Island) tragedy... (Graphic)

wow. Scary stuff. I guess the amount of customers has no bearing on the regulations.. Is it possible to not circumvent the whole 'room within a room' design with a single door? Paul

Room-in-room designs can coexist with strict fire codes, but it takes creativity and patience. If both doors must swing in the same direction, then there needs to be room for the "inner" door to swing and not hit the "outer" door... And if two doors open into the same area, neither door can strike the other.

Hang on a second. Didn't John's design of the control room get drawn in the wrong room? :roll: You wrote "the area not labelled 'other office space' would be the control room" but his control room design is in the space labeled "other office space." The reason I think this is significant is that there is a tiny "hallway": of sorts in the room just inside the door, so you may have room for an inner control room door to swing out towards that outer door. You may have to have the inner control room door moved into the room a bit for it to clear, but perhaps your gair gap between leaves will be enough, or close to enough. --Keith :mrgreen:

sharward wrote:

Hang on a second. Didn't John's design of the control room get drawn in the wrong room? :roll:

Yeah, but since then I've managed to wangle that bigger space (hence my calling john a phsychic post) . And as such they've now given the smaller space to another client. d'oh. I suggested trying to create an airlock the size of the door (so that both doors open open inwards) therefore cutting my space by about a metre squared. They actually said that that would be classed as a seperate lobby and therefore would have to be 2m squared. That's too much space to lose. Crimeny! that doesn't make sense to me.. Paul

When you say "inwards," do you really mean "outwards," in the sense that people exiting the studio would be pushing doors "outwards" rather than pulling them? And are you certain of the 2 square meter requirement, or are you going strictly by what the contractor is telling you? Have you confirmed this requirement with your building department? The reason I ask is that sometimes contractors can be mistaken, or they only know part of the law that applies -- perhaps the most "common" part -- and not the exceptions. I'm also curious about the door on the live room. In all of your drawings, the hinge is closest to the corner, which seems to make the swing of the door interfere with the swing of the door to the control room. I don't suppose you'd be permitted to build this "lobby" in the existing lobby space -- basically a rectangle in front of both existing doorways... :roll: This reminds me of my "landing" requirements when I was initially planning to do a floating floor with a couple of steps up. Building codes here require a similar "lobby" type thing at the bottom of the steps, regardless of which way the door swings. Once I eliminated my steps up (I decided not to float a floor), I was able to have two opposing doors swinging in opposite directions. Keep in mind my project is residential -- I'm pretty sure I'd have the same problem you are if it were commercial space.

No, I mean inwards. Apparently there are restrictions on opening into a lobby as it would mean that a door could open out into the path of a fleeing person... Have tried to get them to budge on the use of that first lobby but they say it's a no goer. I've got an architect + contractor walking around with me tomoro to try and resolve the issues... so I'll keep you posted. I've found a potential resolution, but it means swapping my live/control room round (which isn't so bad as I get a larger live room) and only floating the floor in the live room... any thoughts on this anyone? is floating a commercial studios control room essential too? Paul

Is there any flexibility about the location of the doorway in the smaller room? I'm thinking it's actually the door's swing path (not necessarily the swing direction) that is the problem -- perhaps if the doorway could be relocated more towards the center of the wall, rather than the corner where it is now, that might resolve the "fleeing person" issue. :roll: By possibly not floating your control room, are you hoping to not need two doors? If so, I'm thinking you'll be disappointed with the results. You need two doors for good isolation. --Keith :mrgreen:

sharwood - thanks for all your input mate! I walked around with architect, Acoustician and contractor and we've come up with a series of plans. I'll put them up as soon as I get a hold of the drawings. at the acousticians advice I've been given the even larger room on the other side of the building. (it's a new build and therefore has a few other new rooms that are not yet let out) damn.. I hate when you get a bigger room! hehe I've now eliminated the window issue as there is only one window in both my live and control room. The basic idea will be that we're going to float both rooms and have a single 44db door on the control room and a double 44db door on the live room. We're then going to independently treat the lobby way with 44db doors too. which means we get at least 2 44db doors to each room off the lobby and 3 doors from live room to rest of building. The main reason we were advised to change room was because the original room was facing some residential areas. The new room is on the other side of the building so we can pass the plans through building regs a heck of a lot easier. The acoustician and architect are bashing round ideas for natural ventilation as we speak. On the acousticians advice we're going into the roof and extending the walls so that there is no free access for sound to travel in the roof. We're then thinking of having long ducts that travel up taking warm air to the roof through a clever little diffusion grate that eliminates much of the sound (the rest lost in the tubing insulation). The cold air will then enter through a similar idea traveling down the external wall. thanks everyone for your input thus far. I'll keep everyone informed of progress. Paul

Looking forward to seeing the drawings! I'm especially intrigued by the ventilation ideas, so hopefully there will be drawings for that as well! 8)