What designing recording studios teaches us about comfort and atmosphere

We’ve spent over a decade designing recording studios, including TEN87 and The Qube.

They’re highly technical environments — but the thinking behind them carries into almost every project we work on.

In a studio, sound isn’t something you deal with at the end. It’s something you shape from the outset.

We worked on one space where a small change to a wall build-up — something you would never notice visually — completely transformed how the room felt to use. It shifted from slightly uncomfortable to balanced and controlled.

You wouldn’t necessarily be able to explain why.

But you would feel it.

That way of thinking stays with you.

In restaurants, for example, guests should feel private — not overheard or exposed. Yet, we consider how waiters need to move through the space, what they can see, and how quickly they can read a table; so building enclosures for privacy is usually not the right answer.

So we tune the space differently.

We soften walls with fabrics and artwork, introduce subtle screening at seated eye level, and use surfaces — floors, ceilings, tables — to manage how sound travels. There’s always a level of background noise, but it’s controlled. It creates energy without discomfort.

In homes, the same principle applies in a quieter way.

Open-plan spaces can easily become overwhelming if sound isn’t considered. Equally, bedrooms and quieter areas need to feel insulated from the rest of the house.

These are rarely the most visible decisions.

But they’re often what people are responding to when they say a space “just feels right”.

If something feels slightly off, it’s often not visual.

And it’s almost always easier to resolve early, before everything else is fixed.