Music Rooms (Ojai, California)

Editor's Note: I actually played a large role in building these. See the Vitruvian Gallery for construction images. See also: Architect Gallery.

SAN LUIS OBISPO, CA PREFAB portable Music Practice Rooms win design award 

Four prefabricated portable music practice rooms for a private high school in Ojai – 

changing the problem of how schools can expand into a simple solution-– have won a 

leading architecture award. 

Laura Joines, AIA of DOMU architects is the winner of the 2010 AIA Merit Design Award given by the Central Coast California American Institute of Architects. The award commends the  design of prefabricated music practice rooms for Besant Hill School in Ojai, California. 

The judges commended the pre-fab music rooms as great inspirations for the future in  classroom design given the upcoming new laws requiring the use of portables in California  schools. 

Besant Hill School commissioned the four 100 square foot music practice rooms as a way to add valuable classroom space for a very affordable cost. The room design was inspired by the sound of an instrument: flute, cello, piano and guitar. Each room expresses the ‘frozen music’ of that particular instrument. For example, the cello room has the largest window. The flute room is horizontal and placed higher in the wall. 

For sound proofing reasons there is only one window, carefully placed for passive solar heat gain in winter, summer ventilation, and day lighting to reduce the need for lighting. The extreme recessed angles of the window façade were needed to naturally block the summer sun from overheating the rooms. The nature of the materials themselves allowed this to occur. The Vitruvian® EPS foam could be carved to virtually any shape easily and for no additional cost. 

Re-locatable Structures 

The rooms extend the usable individual classroom space for the school by being positioned around the theater and music complex. Looking out into nature, they give a student the needed space to focus on their instrument and creating music. Typically the foundation and permitting costs are 30-40% of a construction budget. Eliminating the need for either of these saved a great deal of money. The rooms are portable and under the 150 square feet minimum required to obtain a permit. The self-leveling base allows the rooms to free stand anywhere. 

Hyper-efficient building methods 

An innovative hyper-efficient’ 8” EPA foam wall system by Vitruvian® is used for the entire room: floors, walls and ceilings. Expanded polystyrene and light gauge HSS steel provides a clean, green, and healthy environment for the students to practice music, and for the crew that constructed them. Panels are completely recyclable and last twice as long as traditional wood framing. Plus, no CFC’s, out gassing and no construction waster. Considered ‘hyperefficient’ building materials, the foam insulates the rooms so no added heat or cooling is required. Each room is positioned on the site to harvest winter sun and provide a view into nature.

Natural Cork interior 

The entire interior, floors, walls and ceilings, is covered in pre-finished cork flooring for noise reduction, health and durability. The architect adds that ‘the same cellular structure that makes the floor comfortable also reduces noise and vibration. Cork has natural properties that make it anti-allergenic and resistant to insects and naturally fire-resistant. This provides the air space for acoustic absorption, and a clean, soothing interior. Nothing about the rooms should take away from the musician to fully focus on their music”. 

Extension of Design 

The school was designed in the 1950’s according to modernist principles to look like a ‘Greek village’ on the hills on Ojai. These rooms extend that vision by their white cement-based waterproof plaster exterior finish and clean lines. The cement materials were harvested from local sources. The Galvanized metal roofing wraps 90 degrees to form into a wall on the fourth side. 

The award winning designer is Laura Joines, AIA, an architect committed to a sustainable and simple world. This is her 5th AIA design award since 2004. In 2008 she won the AIA design award for the Teixeira House in San Luis Obispo. Her office, DOMU, meaning ‘house’ in Latin, is a design and architecture firm specializing in products and buildings that give regenerative beauty + practicality back to the world. They extend design into the details via their furnishings and organizational systems.