Odd-Shaped building design ideas

Hi, I recently moved into a house on a large corner lot. One of the reasons I chose it was becuase I wanted to build a stand-alone studio on it. In discussing design ideas with friends one suggested this site, which has turned out to be informative to say the least. Because of the way my lot is laid out, the easiest place for me to locate it is in the rear corner. I say 'easiest' becuase as long as I am in the rear 1/3 of the lot and stay under 15' in height, I can proceed with a normal building permit and no variances. This creates a kind of half-trapezoid shape, so it makes designing the rooms kind of interesting. My goals are to have the studio area be about 1,000 sqft with 4 rooms: Control, Vocal iso, Drum iso, and Main (being the largest). I also want a bathroom and a small shop. I'm in a quiet residential neighborhood and won't really be using this commercially or full-time (it's a "hobby", right?), but need to be sure my tendancy to play drums rather loudly late at night won't keep my kids or neighbors up :). One of my issues I'm trying to deal with is control room symmetry. From the reading I've done here over a few days it seems pretty important, but I'm just trying to figure out how to place things and thought I'd seek fresh opinions. Any input would be appreciated! But enough of my ramblings, here are the drawings:

my personal opinion... you're on to something

I guess I should also mention that the outer shell construction has to match the house. Being in the Southwest US the style is cheap first, so it's stick & stucco. I anticipate that the outer leaf will be 2x4 at 16" OC (2x6 if I can afford it), with 15/32" pressboard sheathing, 1" of styrofoam, caulk, house wrap, wire lath, and the stucco material itself (about 3/8"-1/2" of sand/concrete mix). I've not seen an STC rating for stucco, though I'm sure one exists somewhere. The roof material is 15/32" pressboard, 2 layers of 30-pound felt, and concrete roofing tile (S-type). A certain amount of ventilation is required in the attic space, so I pretty much have to rely on the inner leaf of the ceiling for sound reduction in that direction. Dunno if this is useful or not (should probably be over in "Studio Construction" now that I look at it. *shrug*). Steve

Actually, you probably need to either do a three-leaf design with a vented attic, or a two leaf design with an unvented attic. If you vent between a two leaf system, your isolation will suck. :roll:

Aloha, Just a thought...I seem to recall several posts where members had wished they had beefed up the outside leaf before the 1" of styrofoam, caulk, house wrap, wire lath, and the stucco material itself. Food for thought... Aloha 8)

kendale wrote:

Aloha, Just a thought...I seem to recall several posts where members had wished they had beefed up the outside leaf before the 1" of styrofoam, caulk, house wrap, wire lath, and the stucco material itself. Food for thought... Aloha 8)

Good idea, I'll go searching for some posts on that. I'll need to reconcile between those suggestions and what I can get away with while still being 'up to code' (city inspectors are quite strict here, though very nice).

What are your city's setback requirements? You mentioned having to be in the rear 1/3 of the lot and no higher than 15' (which is quite generous, by the way)... But how close can you get to your rear and side property lines? Is this actually a "corner" lot, or a cul-de-sac? What kind of budget are you planning? I hope it's big because this is really ambitious! I'm really looking forward to seeing this project come along -- very cool! --Keith :mrgreen:

sharward wrote:

What are your city's setback requirements? You mentioned having to be in the rear 1/3 of the lot and no higher than 15' (which is quite generous, by the way)... But how close can you get to your rear and side property lines? Is this actually a "corner" lot, or a cul-de-sac? What kind of budget are you planning? I hope it's big because this is really ambitious! I'm really looking forward to seeing this project come along -- very cool! --Keith :mrgreen:

Hi Keith, I wrote the city building and planning coordinators an email describing my plans and asking some questions about what I was allowed to do. The relevant information in the replies were: "If you locate the detached accessory structure fully within the rear 1/3 of the lot, you only need to maintain Building Department's setbacks (usually 5') from all property lines. The maximum height allowed for a detached structure is 15' to the midpoint of the roof. If you do not locate the structure fully within the rear 1/3, you will need to maintain the building setbacks approved for the lot." The 'building setbacks' she refers to are 10' from the sides and 20' from the rear, but as I interpret her response those apply only if I don't stay within the rear 1/3 of the lot. The lot is a corner lot at 11,100 sqft. I'm attaching the city's plot plan on file from the builder. I'm allowed to cover 40% of the lot space (zoned R-40 for two-story development) so I don't have to worry about lot coverage issues (the house only covers about 2,200 of it). I'll be sub-contracting most of the work, as I have several contacts and friends (licensed contractors) in concrete, framing, electrical, HVAC, that I've made over the years. Even so, I'm figuring it will cost between $25,000-$40,000 to put up the structure do the sound treatment and finish carpentry (most of which I'm doing myself). I'm basing this on material and labor estimates from my various contractors + a 20% "it always costs more than you planned" factor. - Steve

After reading a lot more on here, I've taken a second shot at it. It eats into the main studio space a bit and the visibility from vocal isn't as good into the main room. I think those are compromises I can live with though. On the positive side, I do get symmetry in the control room and probably better workflow with the vocal booth directly off to the side. I also get a bit more room in the shop and some storage space. I haven't put in the bass traps and monitor mount stuff for the control room yet. Opinions? Are the parallel walls between the control back and front and in the main room going to be an issue if they're properly diffused and treated? Or am I destined for LF standing waves? - Steve

It's not so much the parallel walls that will make the difference (you'll have standing waves no matter WHAT the angle of your walls, they're just harder to figure out ahead of building it) - but you need to reconsider the ratio of length/width/height in your CR to keep modal buildups from being so unbalanced that they color the room sound. Try a google search on Louden, Bolt, and Sepmeier to get some charts on "ideal" room ratios - when these are right, the room will still have modes but they will be balanced enough NOT to cause serious problems with response in the room. When figuring room ratios for a room with splayed walls, use the average wass-wall distance - I.E., the rear of your CR is 14 feet and the front is 10 feet wide; use 12 feet as the width for ratio calculations. Drums - unless you're willing to give up at least 12" for total wall thickness, don't deceive yourself into thinking you can play whenever you want to - the same goes for just using the wall construction you outlined. You'll need more mass than that for your outer layer, no extra air spaces, separate frames for the inner walls, and 3 layers of 5/8" gypsum wallboard on the inner frame. Your outside door should NOT enter directly into the drum room because doors are one of your weakest points in ANY sound-isolated space. Stucco, most of which is gypsum and cement, has almost the same mass as gypsum wallboard and so about the same isolative qualities. If you use specs for gypsum, you'll be safe. Because you're building from scratch, you can pretty easily make the building LOOK like your house without it being as poorly isolated as your house; you just need to know ahead of time that everything UNDER the skin needs to be build DIFFERENT. If you take your time and don't rush it, read as much here as you can CONTINUALLY before, during and after your project, wait for answers before committing to doing something a particular way, you can reach your "drum anytime" goal, especially if you're NOT an "I kin beat these things harder than Metallica" kind of guy - the louder you play (and the pickier your neighbors) the more time and money it will take... Steve