Champagne Studio
Existing structure
Champagne Studio is an adaptive reuse, design-build project in Moscow, Idaho. The client had the hundred-year-old carriage house on their property but aside from a little bit of storage it remained unused. A musician, the client required a space to use as a practice and recording studio for producing his own music. Something that served him creatively, but also something that controlled sound from entering and escaping for cleaner recordings as well as noise consideration for the neighborhood. Our design called for a concrete floor, to upgrade the foundation to replace the existing wooden grade beams, and to add a secondary set of walls within the existing structure with insulation to aid in sound isolation. The existing structure uses rafters and collar ties to hold up the roof and these are left to penetrate the interior leaving a voluminous space with better proportions and scale. The alternatives to the ceiling design we investigated were various methods of doing a dropped ceiling or a redesign of the roof structure. These alternatives would result in better sound isolation but would ultimately leave the space too cramped or prove to be prohibitively expensive given the project scope and budget. The studio’s finishes are intentionally left bare and somewhat raw while still showing refinement. The concept behind this decision was to leave the client with a blank slate that the he could change, adapt, and experiment with to fit his own creative style as well as allowing him to tune the room acoustically to fit his needs. 30