Amy Stoneham sits down with Sergio Molho and Silvia Molho at WSDG to explore the acoustic realm within luxury homes.
Acoustics can be a complex subject to untangle. Why should it be considered? Does it really make a difference? Is it going to take up a large chunk of the budget? These are all considerations that WSDG (Walters-Storyk Design Group) can help with.
WSDG engineers architectural and technical solutions that ensure excellent acoustical and media technology performance within the home and in commercial environments such as recording studios. The base of WSDG’s business has always been in these commercial environments, but like many sectors, the pandemic saw a huge rise in the residential side with it continuing to grow.
Acoustics in the home exploded during the pandemic, so much so that this became a focal point of study for WSDG, as Sergio Molho, partner and director of business development at WSDG explains: “During the pandemic, we discovered three distinctive types of spaces in residential projects and called them ‘E-studios’, not because they are recording studios or something related to professional studios, but because it’s a dedicated space in the home for different functions.
“One of these is music and video production. People were unable to go to their recording studios or production offices, so they started creating audio, video and music content from their homes. The concept of a home studio existed before, but there was more need for interaction that created this explosion in demand.”
Working from home was another trend that obviously grew during the pandemic. “The need to have mission control set ups for CEOs and employees to have dedicated spaces in their homes to allow them to concentrate and do their work was very important,” continues Sergio.
Acoustics isn’t something often considered in a remote working environment but as working from home has become more permanent, more homeowners are having it implemented into their homes for comfort and productivity. “We create rooms in their homes to have acoustic isolation, internal room acoustic appropriateness, lighting, AV networks, cameras, and so on which all comes together to build a comfortable working environment. That’s why we identify professional working environments at home as an E-studio, too.”
Finally, and what is probably most obvious in our world, is the need for acoustic treatments and isolation in home entertainment. Dedicated entertainment spaces often have acoustic treatments implemented to ensure the room sounds as good as possible to create the highest quality sound experience for movie watching, music listening, gaming, etc.
According to Sergio, these trends are continuing, with WSDG seeing more and more growth each year in the residential sector. New considerations must be taken into account when it comes to the luxury home. “In terms of aesthetics, many people want something that is very luxurious,” says Silvia Molho, partner and art director at WSDG. “Some clients don’t want to see any technology in the walls and hide screens when not in use. We have to find ways to incorporate acoustic treatments and isolation into these installations while bearing in mind the luxury aesthetic.”
When it comes to making a room sound good for entertainment, internal room acoustics should be merged with interior design, something that Silvia is an expert in, according to Sergio: “We call it ‘technical interior design’, because it’s an interior design but with a technical approach.”
Sergio explains that the biggest trend at the moment is invisible acoustics, which means applying all the concepts of controlling sound behaviour inside of the room, but without expressing it with an object that looks like an acoustic panel. “We hide those treatments – absorption, reflection and diffusion – inside of the interior look and feel of the space,” he says.
Silvia adds that it can be as simple as adding carpets or curtains to make a difference to the acoustics of a room. “It’s very simple elements that can make all the difference. In some luxury apartment buildings, you can hear everything because the walls are so thin. Adding a carpet could mean other neighbours can’t hear you moving a chair, for example.”
Many luxury homes like to use natural materials such as marble in their homes. However, this can cause acoustic issues. Addressing these requirements often involves experimenting with various materials to ensure that technology seamlessly integrates with design – a unique expertise of WSDG. Sometimes compromises need to be made, such as implementing materials that look like marble but provide acoustic benefits to enhance the room sound quality.
When looking at home acoustics, it is important to have acoustic treatments in rooms where sound is important, such as home theatres or media rooms. Equally important, acoustic isolation should also be considered throughout the home to stop noise escaping rooms and disturbing neighbours and other people in the home.
“Sometimes the acoustic isolation of media rooms and home cinemas are equally as complex as a recording studio,” states Sergio. “In particular, isolation is the most complicated part of acoustics, but when it comes to sound transmission, it is a must. Other people in the home don’t want to be trying to sleep and hear Godzilla’s footsteps, for example.”
As well as sound isolation technology, WSDG highlights that it can be as simple as determining the right position of the room in the residence which can help save money.
“We like to be involved in a project as early as possible,” Sergio continues. “The remedial work for an acoustic isolation problem is very painful and costly. Therefore, we recommend that professional teams engage with us early in the design phase, or even during the schematic conceptual design stage. There are things that can be done at that early stage that will have zero impact or marginal impact on the cost but will provide significant benefits. We can help determine the width of walls and slabs, the location of rooms in relation to others, and give advice that incurs no additional cost but offers advantages in acoustic quality.”
Acoustic isolation isn’t just important within home cinemas and media rooms, it should also be considered as a sonic footprint for the entire residence. WSDG works with very high-end luxury homes and apartments where acoustics is becoming one of the main points of interest.
“When the acoustic isolation or acoustic quality of a space fails, it normally fails at night when you want to sleep,” explains Sergio. “Imagine buying the most stunning penthouse apartment, only to be kept awake by the noise of an air conditioning unit. That would be incredibly frustrating. So, isolation for quality of life and quietness is extremely important.”
Sound is bidirectional so, while isolation keeps noise out, it is also designed to keep noise in. Privacy is very important in residential environments to stop neighbours from hearing what goes on inside your home. Or, in a home office environment, you might not want other members of the household to hear your conversations, and likewise, you don’t want the noise of the kids playing to disturb meetings.
When it comes to acoustic treatment compared to room correction devices, WSDG argues that a room needs to have physical acoustic treatment to perform at its best. “Acoustics is a subtopic of physics, the way sound behaves is directly related to the laws of physics,” states Sergio. “There is an absolute limit of how much you can correct electroacoustically or technically from a room correction point of view. If a room has a model behaviour, meaning that it’s starting to pile up the frequencies and create anomalies on frequency response or it’s too reverberant or too echoey, you start to get slap echoes, and there is no electronic room correction that can be performed to fix that. That’s the reality of the room.
“When you start trying to correct a room electronically, the problem usually gets worse. Many people think that by adding more speakers and amplifiers, it gets better because there’s more energy when, actually, they end up blasting the room and losing all of the experience.”
Sergio continues: “We explain it with two equal rooms, one is acoustically treated with intelligence and design, and the other without. They both have the same speakers, same technology but the experience will be completely different. The acoustically treated space will create a better objective and subjective experience from a listening point of view.
“It’s like having the motor of a Ferrari with the best gears you can get, but the aerodynamics and wheels of the car are from Toyota. You have a motor that can run at 300mph, but the car will not support it, and you will not be able to deploy the possibilities of that technology to its max.”
The topic of acoustics is being talked about in the high-end residential sector much more in recent years, and companies such as WSDG use their decades-long expertise to ensure an optimal home experience.