Trying to figure best layout for studio/rehearsal space

Hello everybody. Already for a long time I am dreaming of building my own space an I believe that now the time has finally come! I am currently planning to build a studio in my backyard that also needs to serve as a rehearsal space. I already have a fairly good idea of how I want the space to look like, but would like to have some other, fresh ideas from you guys, too. it never hurts to get a second opinion, eh... Well, here's the plan. Location I live in a fairly quiet neighbourhood near Leuven, Belgium. This means that I want/need to keep the outside levels to an absolute minimum. Local regulations impose a limit of 35dBA at 4m! SO this means that the isolation requirements are fairly heavy. Construction The studio will be built in a completely new cave/cellar/basement... So, basically, completely under the ground. It will have no connection whatsoever with my or anyones house. So this means that 5 sides of the 'box' will be surrounded with soil 100%. This should help the isolation, no? The top (=weakest link) will also be covered with soil for the better part. however, to cater for the entrance with stairs, the lavatory and some other stuff, a small shed will be built on top. The only measurement that is a real hard limit is the length of 10m (outside measurement). The width I would like to keep it around 6.5m inside. My goal is to have ca. 3m height inside the innner rooms. The cave itself will be made with cast concrete to ensure that it is 100% waterproof. The 'roof' of the cave will be constructed with giant concrete blocks (I don't know the english name for it). So basically, the only whole will b ethe one for the stairs. Inside rooms will be built using concrete blocks of 150mm thickness. That is basically the standard way over here and is also very good for isolation between the rooms. Rooms I mainly want three rooms: a control room (my room), a recording/rehearsal area and a machine/storage room. The control room and recording area should have sufficient isolation to allow me to work on my own stuff in the control room while another band is rehearsing in the big room. That's why I think I will need two room-within-the-room's. My first idea was to build each of these two rooms on its own floating floor. However, because of cost reasons I would like to know whether that is really required? Can I achieve my isolation requirements if I would build only one of the rooms (e.g. the control room) on a a floating floor? If so, Do I still need to build the other room as a room-within-the-room (i.e. cave) too? Layout I have included a first shot of how I think this space can be organised. My main gripe is that I currently cannot make a window between the two rooms. I also would like to make the rehearsal area a little bit bigger, but the stairs are a bit in the way. I'm also not 100% satisfied with the way the doors are positioned. So, to sum up, I am not very happy with my own results yet. For my control room I used the ratios of 1:1.14:1.39 which gave me a nice area with a height of 3m, that doesn't take too much space for the rest of the rooms. Anyway, if anyone has some more ideas/suggestions, they are more than welcome. Many thanks in advance. Kind regards, B-)

not sure why you cannot add a window between the 2 rooms - esp if you flip the control room to face the rehearsal room. you'll still have to deal with re-positioning the doors but if you're going to make the investment you should get maximum value out of it... as far as construction - make sure you have proper safety (egress, fire, etc) and proper ventilation (esp if this is a heavily sealed environment).

Hi Glenn, I hear ya. Building this will cost lots of money so, indeed, I want to squeeze the last bit out of it. Attached is a 2nd attempt for a layout. Now I can have a window built in and have more space in the storage room under the stairs (height in that area will still be ca. 2m). The only thing I loose now is the possibility to easily put my computer and desks PSU in the machine room, because of the length of the cables. Still trying to figure out a way to that. I could add some sort of cupboard outside, but I feel a little bit worried about that because of guests renting the rehearsal area touching/breaking this stuff... Could be a non-issue, but better safe than sorry. I am also still wondering about the floating floor issue. Do I really need to float both rooms, or could I get away with doing that for only the control room? Or should I ask that in the Studio Construction forum? Other suggestions are, of course, always welcome. Many thanks. Kind regards, Bert

Oh, I forgot to add another question. In this design I have only one, yet heavy, soundproof door for each room. Would that be sufficient for the isolation between the rooms? For the isolation towards the 'outside' world I would add another door on top of the stairs. That way each room has two 'leaves'... Would that be sufficient or should I add some doors somewhere? Many thanks. Kind regards, Bert

Can you have the stairs come in over the main room and lose a little cieling height just in that corner? I'd also love to see an elevation pxt or 3D of your design.

Yeah, I know. Me too, I would like to see the 3D thing happening. But I just don't seem to get my head around SketchUp. I'll try to make a drawing the 'old-school' way to illustrated the heights. That said, I think the stairs are not that bad, currently. There is a nice space underneath it that can be partly used as storage and partly for setting a fridge. But I am happy to look at any other options suggested... Kind regards, Bert

Aloha, How tall are your ceilings? Aloha 8)

Greetings! OK, Here's a drawing showing some heights. The 70cm above the rooms is intended for the ducts of the ventilation (and maybe airco). Together with my architect I would like to see whether this space could be made a bit smaller in favour of the room's height. I made this to allow for some access to these ducts in case of problems, and for the installation itself, of course. Originally I had an inner room height of 3m in mind, but when drawing this I came to the conclusion that my cellar would be enormously deep and that I would need very long stairs for that. However, if budget allows, I still would like to find a way to achieve this... That would give me some extra room for making some clouds, maybe a slanted ceiling and such... Anyway, here's what I have come up with. Kind regards, Bert

I just came up with a new idea. What if I replaced the stairs by an elevator for the material and a winding staircase. Wouldn't I gain a lot of room that way? And... the opening in the 'ceiling' of the cellar can be a lot smaller, thus easier to soundproof. What do you guys think about this? Am I going nuts or should this be feasible? Kind regards, Bert

I might be wrong on this: Elevator is musician's heaven (second to ground floor of course). Would be cool from a musician's point of view. Not sure if it would save you space though. If you keep the current layout in mind, removing the stairs wont really make a huge difference in available surface. Plus you loose your machine room under the staircase, which you'll have to fit in some place else. Cheers, Sigert

Aloha, A couple of thoughts for you: - Elevator - Would appear to be an expensive route to take :!: - Circular stairs - While definitely a smaller footprint, every try lugging a drum set/amps/keyboards up/down one of these? :shock:

I would like to see the 3D thing happening.

Perhaps something like this? Aloha 8)

- Circular stairs - While definitely a smaller footprint, every try lugging a drum set/amps/keyboards up/down one of these? :shock:

I think he meant a combination of elevator AND winding staircase. Must agree it sounds kinda expensive. No idea on real cost though. Cheers, Sigert Ps. Did we mention Sketchup yet? It's the 3D program most of the forum visitors use. It's free and super-easy to learn with the video tutorials. http://sketchup.google.com/

Aloha Kendale! Whauw, thanks, man. Any chance I could get the .skp-file to work further on this? You're the best. Greetings, Bert

Hi Sigert. Yes, I know, I don't gain that much space. I initially thought so, but the combination of the stairs and the winding staircase takes almost the same amount of space. So I guess the regular staircase will still be the cheapest option... BTW, wij hebben een paar gezamenlijke muzikale vrienden, wist je dat? Laat ons ze de twee W's noemen. Ikzelf ben nl. ook keyboardspeler en heb ook nog even met hen gespeeld. Groeten uit Leuven, Bert

Aloha,

Any chance I could get the .skp-file to work further on this?

Here you go. Aloha 8)

Hey Bert, would there be any reason why you could not have the staircase run with no landing? Seems like if you take it out(the landing) you could have the stairs end close to an entry door. You may also find that part of the room(s) could actually go beneath the staircase to regain what was once lost sq. footage. Just a notion, Brien

Hi Brien. I am not sure if I understand you 100%. Do you mean something like in the attached drawing? Yes, maybe it's an option, but I think I would then need to increase the stairs' angle considerably to have some space at the bottom to turn. I could be wrong on this, but I see two possible problems: 1. The stairs becomes quite long without a resting point, which could be a problem when carrying heavy stuff (like my keyboards in their flightcases). 2. The angle might become too big to safely carry heavy stuff. But you're right it's possibly an option I have to investigate. Thanks for the suggestion. Kind regards, Bert

you could scissor the stairs and maybe even gain some footprint...

Hi Glenn, Yeah, that was one of my original ideas. I only did it slightly differently (see one of the previous drawings). However, I really do like your drawing. Would you mind sending mee the skp-file so I can try to fit the stairs in my current plan? So many thanks. Greetings from Belgium, Bert

Yes sir, that was what I meant, only running in the opposite direction. The stairs bottomed out at one of the room walls in my thinking. After looking it over, the support would not be difficult to build to support the stair stringers....but it would have approx. 23 steps @ 7 inches high. Might get tired just going down them once:) You'll figure it out with the help of these knowledgeable folks. Brien

Berre wrote:

However, I really do like your drawing. Would you mind sending mee the skp-file so I can try to fit the stairs in my current plan?

i used the concrete stair maker Ruby script (free). http://www.crai.archi.fr/RubyLibraryDep ... nctool3.rb (save it to your plugin folder and (re)start Sketchup - assumes you'v enabled plugins...). easy to use... just set the height of the space, add a landing. calc the number of risers @ about 17-20cm per riser.