Building a university music facility in a reused printery building
Abstract
In 2015 Western Sydney University embarked on a project to refit two existing buildings to create a new music precinct. The building housing the recording facilities previously accommodated the University's printery, essen-tially a lightweight workshop building. The new use required the building to house two studio control rooms, a teaching control room, four isolation rooms, a live recording room, ensemble rehearsal spaces and music practice rooms. At project commencement, there existed a significant incompatibility between the ambitious acoustic re-quirements in the project brief, the project budget, the size of the building, the number of rooms required and the limitations of the existing building structure. This paper outlines the design process undertaken to reconcile the competing requirements of the project and deliver a high performance, fit for purpose music and recording facility. Key points covered include; stakeholder engagement to derive the true acoustic criteria required; design compro-mises related to existing structure, spatial allowances and budget; Odeon 3D room modelling of control rooms and comparison with 3D room impulse response measurements on completion.