New construction studio design in Portland Oregon

[yosh]

Hello all,

We have been running a successful recording studio for over 10 years now in Portland, Oregon USA. We work on music almost exclusively, with an emphasis on tracking. We are not genre-specific and work on everything from rock to singer-songwriter, and jazz to hip hop. We are now looking at building a new facility on land that we recently acquired instead of staying where we currently lease space. Our existing studio is 1000 square feet (93 sq meters); a one room combined control/tracking room with one iso room and a second iso room/lounge. The new studio building would probably be around 2,500 square feet (232 sq meters) and built on a 5000 sq ft (464 sq meter) lot. The neighboring properties are residential, so we'd need to keep leakage to a minimum.

Here's a list of what I'd love to have (with the understanding that we can't have everything we want):

- The "A room": 1000 to 1300 sq ft (93 - 121 sq meter) live room with 2-3 iso rooms that can operate independently as a one-room studio OR congruently with the "B room", a control/mix room (I know this is a tough one, but I want to explore it more in the hopes it may be possible).

- The just-mentioned B room (control/mix room) would have it's own smaller "live" room, probably 200 sq ft (19 sq meters) or so, and maybe an amp closet. This room would be able to be used as it's own separate B room with the A and B rooms having independent sessions running at the same time, or as a control room for the A room.

- A lounge/common area for hanging out while not recording. This space would have a bathroom, a kitchenette, and space, perhaps separate room, for some equipment shared between the two studios, mostly microphones, amps, etc.

- A tech room which could be very small but would be very, very helpful for me to have a dedicated on-site space to build or repair gear for the studio.

- I'd also like to find a way to provide lodging to out-of-town bands. It could be just murphy beds that fold out of the wall when needed, or maybe it would be separate small rooms.

I know that the dual-purpose control room is a very challenging idea, not only in terms of achievable isolation, but also in practice. I think that we'd probably have patchbays in both rooms with ALL A and B room mic level tie line connections able to come up in both places. At least some equipment racks would be on ELCO connectors and able to move between the two rooms.

I have a bunch of experience building smaller home studios and I built our current studio http://www.themaproomstudio.com so I have some knowledge of proper studio building techniques, MSM, room within a room, etc, but I think I might want to enlist the help of a studio architect on this project. I'm still working on drawing out possible floor plans, but haven't landed on anything yet that I love. I don't have many very specific questions right now, but if anyone has any ideas or advice after reading this, I would certainly welcome it. Also, I will continue to post in this topic when I have more specific questions and as our process unfolds.

Thanks!
Josh