fI am naturally flattered to beinvited to select a career-span-ning top 10 of RA studio

designs. The task is daunting as thereare so many factors that can be consid-ered – size, acoustic quality, interiordesign, the location, the experience ofthe design and implementation process,the subsequent success of the studioand perhaps one of the most signifi-cant, the relationship with the client.Without a good client, it is virtuallyimpossible to create a good studio.

I have decided to select the final 10out of those built from scratch ratherthan from remodelling projects or pure-ly acoustic fit-outs – a decision whichin itself painfully excludes some majorRA landmark successes like CTS 2 andLansdowne for Adrian Kerridge, Konkfor Ray Davies and Songphonic forOsman Kent. The projects are notranked in any particular order.

Hulgrave Hall/Pluto Music,Cheshire, UK The first completed RA project designedfor film music composer, KeithHopwood (Herman’s Hermits) in thewinter of 1987. This project still repre-sents everything that a designer couldhope to achieve in a project, includingan idyllic countryside location (a listedhistoric barn and manor house withWelsh hill-fort ruins on the horizon) anda supportive client – the solution wasnecessarily radical.

The control room is conceived as afully independent, cantilevered vibra-tion-isolated concrete ‘pod’ suspendedat high level in the barn on a series ofcolumns over protected 15th century cat-tle-feeding troughs. The live area isformed at the same upper level withsound isolation carefully integrated toexpose the historic roof structure andwindow openings. Keith Hopwood isthe first in a line of respected clients thathave enabled RA to achieve the resultswe have. The project also introduced usto Russell Hatt, structural engineer andcollaborator of RA ever since.

Plato Place, London, UK This began life as a private music studiofor Rick Astley and was constructedfrom scratch on the ground floor of anoffice/design studio developmentaround a courtyard, making sound iso-lation from neighbours a particularlycritical design issue. The project is per-haps most noteworthy for the dramat-ic ‘stealth bomber’ shaped plan –acoustically desirable but in part gen-erated by the physical planning con-straints of the unit and the position ofa supporting column. Control roomsfor Babajim, Amar Mohile, RobertMiles and Karl Jenkins have similarplan shapes generated by acoustic con-siderations/host building constraints.

Alberts, London, UK This was in-house music recordingstudio for artist development. The proj-ect included extensive ancillary accom-modation for artists and the associatedpublishing operations of Australia’sAlbert Productions, represented in theUK by George Young of the legendaryEasybeats and fronted by veteran roadmanager, Robbie Williams (no, notthat one....). It was constructed fromscratch within a former 1950s wood-working factory and warehouse spacetucked away behind residential build-ings in the heart of London’s IslingtonGreen district.

Salt Records and home studio, London, UK The first RA project for Robert Mileswas an in-house, twin-studio facilitybuilt in an industrial unit in northLondon for his Salt Records label. Thisdesign was another example of rotatingthe control plan relative to the hostbuilding axis to achieve more efficientacoustic and ergonomic proportions.

Dramatic colours led to it being fea-tured on the homepage of RA’s websitefor years. RA went on to design a fab-ulous small home facility in the glass-sided penthouse of Robert’s Londonhome – the customised Black Box basesacoustic control system was subse-quently taken down and reconfiguredin a new studio within his villa in Ibiza.

Private music studio,Mumbai, India A private music studio for film scorecomposer Amar Mohile located in anupper floor of a commercial buildingin Mumbai. A representative instanceof when it is not vital to impose a fullyfloated, independent ‘room-within-a-room’ solution for all spaces. The solidnature of the reinforced concrete hoststructure and the corner location (withtherefore only one immediately adja-cent neighbour) made it possible tomore fully exploit the relatively limitedsurface area and restricted headroom.It is another good example of the poten-tial advantages in rotating the controlroom axis in plan through 45˚ relative tothe host building to enable a wider andacoustically more appropriate shape tobe achieved.

Scramble, Covent Garden, UK This commercial music and post facil-ity comprises three control rooms – onecoupled to a large live area dividedacoustically for music and voice over,the other two with smaller isolationbooths purely for voice over. Dramaticplan shapes and interior design featur-ing metallic sprayed walls, etched glassblocks and custom Black Box elementsdirectly inspired future clients, BillGrishaw and Kristin O’Connor, to com-mission RA to design RainmakerStudios in Richmond, Virginia after

seeing photographs published in Mix Magazine.

The client, veteran engineer and pro-ducer Bill Gautier, had been a staunchand loyal advocate of RA since the ear-lier Magmasters project which we created around him, ultimately leading to the design of his privatemusic studio, Marthas.

Rainmaker, Richmond VA, US The studios in this commercial musicand post facility were constructedfrom scratch within a 19th centuryiron framed, timber floored commer-cial warehouse under residentialapartments in Richmond’s historicShockoe Bottom district. The isolatedshell walls were formed of exposedVirginia brickwork, independentlyfloated from the host structure andcarrying twin isolated lids (a double

system of high mass, damped lami-nate ceilings) to ensure complete sep-aration from the apartments above.The spaces feature solid hickory floors(my own self-indulgent tribute toGram Parsons) bonded to reinforcedconcrete floating raft floors.

Sound City, Mumbai, IndiaA ground-up project extending the landmark Empire Studios in Mumbai andproviding the envelope for a large Dolby-certified double-storey film mix theatreover two floors at an upper level includingfoyer areas for preview audiences andclients. The machine room is housedunder the rear raked seating area with visu-al contact to the raised mixing level.

This marked RA’s first use of struc-tural glass for the flooring area aroundthe console. It is still considered bymany to have the finest film mixingacoustic in India. The striking interiordesign was passionately encouraged byan exceptionally supportive client, thecharismatic Yusuf Lakdawala.

Black Rock, SantoriniA residential music studio comprisingcontrol room, a main live area, two iso-lation booths, machine room and ancil-lary accommodation. The studio wascreated in a painter’s studio and partsof the attached villa. An external soundlobby to access the control room and thedrum booth were constructed asground-up extensions to the villa usingthe local black volcanic rock that givesits name to the studio – in turn, the firstproject to be recorded (for blues guitarist,Joe Bonamassa) was named Black Rockin recognition of the studio.

Babajim Studios andMastering, Istanbul, Turkey A commercial facility with three inde-pendent studios built from scratch overthree floors in former retail/office prem-ises in the heart of Istanbul. Studio Afeatures a gallery over isolation boothslinked by a bridge to the upper controlroom level, which in turn looks backout over the gallery and studio areas.

The studio features large hinged sections of moving wall for varying the acoustic characteristics. These wall sections can also be arranged to form avariety of separation zones. Studio B com-prises a control room and isolation booth,while the third studio is a dramaticallyshaped, stand-alone mastering controlroom. The project was conceived by soundand mastering engineer, Pieter Snapper. Q

(as told to Jim Evans)www.aaa-design.com

WORLD

www.prosoundnewseurope.com ! July 2011studio12

Black Rock, a residential studio in Santorini, was created in a painter’s studio

Recording Architecture – The BookThis summer, Recording Architecture publishes RA – The Book, a large-format full-colour production that highlights a handsome cross section of the 500-plusstudio projects that designer Roger D’Arcy and his team have been involved withover the years. We asked D’Arcy to select his top 10....

Mumbai’s Sound City is an expansion of Enterprise Studios

The private music studio of film score composer Amar Mohile in Mumbai

Babajim boasts three independent studios