I began planning a recording studio in a barn in France several years ago. It's taken a number of twists and turns, both in design and construction, but is coming much closer to being a reality. Having a studio with a large room to work in has been a lifelong dream, and I'm trying to take advantage of the wealth of knowledge available now on building rooms with decent acoustics and reasonable amounts of isolation to the outside world.

Isolation in this case in not a matter of keeping the noise of the world out of the studio - the outside environment is incredibly quiet. Instead, I'm trying to keep the noise of the studio in the studio, so as not to disturb the extraordinary silence. To this end, the walls are solid concrete block, and there will be a good-sized "room within a room" with what I hope will be exceptionally good separation.

A series of pictures of the phases of construction for the barn are shown below. The barn will also house an apartment for guests on the same floor as the studio, and the ground floor will have storage and a workshop. The barn was originally a dairy barn, with poured concrete stalls and mangers; removing these was a lot of work. The outside walls will be stucco, in keeping with the buildings in the area, a beautiful part of France with a long history of building in stone.

Update, April 2009: I haven't been able to put the photos up as fast as they've come over the past year. Construction on the barn is now finished; as you can see from the photos, what remains to be done now is to put everything that's been in storage back together, test it, fix it, and turn it from a bunch of boxes and cases into a place where you make music.

Here are a few photos of where things have wound up....