The GOAL: Create a studio with world class acoustics.
The STUDIO:
The building will be 11.2 x 7.1m. The height is 5m, in the back and sloping down to 4.2m in the front. Inside we will construct three rooms: The height of the building to the eves will range from 4.5-3.8,m, and the interior heights of the ceilings in the rooms will be minimum:: Control Room 3m, Live Room 3.5m. The control room is aprox. 5m long x 4.2m wide. Floor area: 21m2, room volume: 58.2 m3. The live room is 5.4m x 5.9m. Floor area: 31 m2, room volume: 109.2 m3.
Building
The Building is to be constructed on a massive concrete slab, approx. 50cm thick. Curl form layer, vapour barrier, smoothing layer, thermal insulation in the floormate system, lightweight concrete and final layer of cemented cement ready to receive flooring. Conduits for the power, microphone tie lines, CAT, midi, XLR returns, LRS, Headphones, etc.. will be placed in the floor and run to the 4 walls of the live room and control room.
At the back of the building (which backs up to a huge granite wall), we must construct a 30cm x 5m tall retaining wall with steel. A drainage tube is placed at the back of the wall and lined with plastic to protect from water entering into the building. This will then we surrounded on two sides but 40-6cm thick granite stones. So we will have a massive amount of isolation on three sides. The building is being constructed by a local company called Waters Edge. The build will be made of 25cm thermal blocks with 10cm of insulation and a vapour layer to protect against humidity. This is using the technique in Portugal known as the capotto system.
Roof
Concrete beams. Slopping roof with 6cm of insulation and red roof tiles.
Studio Inside
Stuart created a basic design and this is what we are going with but since he never finished it, Joules Newell, is finishing the design with modifications and will build the inside of the studio. Joules and his team have travelled all over Europe building world class studios, so I trust that this will be done properly. They plan to isolate the control room from the other two rooms and construct the three rooms using 2 leaf MSM construction with two layers of plasterboard (the most inside Eco). The windows will be double pained and laminated on the inside. From what I understand, Joules will use a suspended ceiling in the live room.
http://www.newellacousticengineering.com/
HVAC
The HVAC system will be installed above the small entrance room with the ducting and silencer tubes in the ceiling of the control room, where they will also exit the building through a gap in the granite wall structure. The studio will have about 200m3 to air space. I would like to error on the side of caution though and have a higher capacity then calculated since it can be quite hot in the summer and wet and humid in the winter here.
Projected Time Line
March-mid May to construct the building (depends on the weather)
June-July- Joules and his crew complete the inside.
Estimated Budget:
70,000€.
Once this post is approved I will post weekly updates.
All the best
ricardo or Scott or Dr Space
