JWL's studio design

awesome, gullfo. I need to keep playing with sketchup. I need to learn it as it's going to be a very useful tool for me. Because of my budget (slow and steady) I will probably have lots of time on my hands to design and document things thoroughly. Ultimately I still think the solution is, once I feel like I have something close to a reasonable command of sketchup, I'll re-do the drawing from scratch myself. But that's down the road. In the meantime, this is INCREDIBLY helpful. Thanks to both gullfo and kendale, as always!

I haven't updated in a while. The studio build has been put on hiatus for a while; rather than put my limited budget into construction, I've decided to put what I have now into a mobile recording rig (handmade, I'll likely write about it, if I do it will be on this forum somewhere). My rationale is that with this rig, I can develop some cash flow right away, and use that cash flow to build out the room. And, about the room.... LOL. Building out the garage is still an option. I like the above design, and I'd be comfortable moving forward with this design if I decide to do so. But I'm rethinking this, for several reasons: 1. If I turn the garage into a studio, then I'll need to build a garage, or at the very least a large shed. I don't keep a car in there, but I do keep our motor scooter, along with all my tools and other storage in there. That space has to be accounted for in my household. 2. This garage is not an ideal building for a studio. First, it's small. Second, I'd build it with more mass from the ground up so no "beefup" phases would have to be dealt with. 3. I'm REALLY into alternative construction. My favorite idea right now is to build a mostly-underground structure using rammed-earth tire construction. For those unfamiliar, this type of labor-intensive but very cheap construction uses recycled tires, each of which is rammed full with 300lbs of dirt with a sledgehammer, and stacked like bricks. It is perhaps most well-known inside Earthships. I love the idea of this; my exercise routine is with a sledgehammer for 14 minutes. That's about the time it takes to pack a tire. So slowly but surely, my minimum daily exercise routine means I'm one step closer to a finished studio. Heh. Talk about slow but sure.... This type of construction would be great, I'm thinking, for the outer shell of a studio. Lots of mass in one huge leaf. Then, inside, I could pour separate slabs for each room and build up from there using inside-out walls or whatever.

I just wanted to throw in something WRT to ventilation. Something I've come across and am considering implementing for my own project is this'free air-conditioning' /preheating ground based system. This wouldn't necessarily be an option for many existing buildings, but for new construction it could be very economical. I'm still somewhat skeptical as to its performance, but 'on paper' it looks promising. Although, if you go with something like rammed earth, then A/C would be mostly moot as it would already incorporate this concept, but the ventilation aspect could still come into play. Regards, Tom

wow, very cool. Thanks for the heads up, I'll certainly investigate this more thoroughly if/when I get to the build. Great info! I think that the studio, even though it would be underground, would still need to be cooled somehow. These are highly-insulated rooms after all; a way to keep fresh, cool air in during a session with lots of body heat and electronic gear will be a must. I live in Maine, so otherwise I could probably get away with something minimal in terms of HVAC for underground, but a studio plays by different rules entirely.