How I Renovated and Soundproofed A School Music Classroom in Mauritius

One of the many projects which required much work but really meant a lot to me is redoing this school's music classroom.

Before we get into the works, let me tell you a bit about this school in Mauritius. Like most parents, we wanted the best for our children. We wanted a school which would provide both academics and activities to build Life Skills, Emotional Intelligence, Respect for Nature and above all have fun learning. After a few visits to various schools, we found L'Odyssée du Savoir, a young school using the Montessori concept as well as others. The school welcomes parents involvement in teaching extra curricular activities and I had the chance to accompany these school kids for a few woodwork classes. I received a request from them to renovate and soundproof their school music classroom. It was a real challenge cause I normally work alone but I love challenges, so I accepted.

An attempt by a different team to soundproof the walls was carried out previously which unfortunately the school was not fully satisfied of. I proposed to redo the walls from scratch. For that, I would need to pull down everything off the wall, from the isolation to studs and plywood, which I did. Everything attached to walls were removed. It needed to look new with optimized space. The building was old and had thick metal railway track like bars used as beams across the room. Holding no support to the walls, I cut them out freeing up an even higher space to the ceiling. Cutting these bars was extremely tough job, quite a few metal cutting disc were used but I eventually had them removed.

Once all the bars were out of the way, I could pull down the sheets of plywood as well as wood planks used to hold them. To not make waste to these materials, I removed them with care. There were of course some which couldn't be saved but I accounted for their replacement.

I intended to reuse the same isolation fibers and boards as well as polystyrene to fill the new frames, door and windows. As I do for most of my projects, a 3D design model had to be made to layout area, partition, openings and quantify all materials needed.

Considering this room to become a fully functional Music Classroom, I would need to cater for a few power supply for Electrical Music Instruments and sound system etc.

A few electrical works were also carried out such as moving light switch and lowering power sockets, all of which wires concealed in walls rendering everything safe for the kids and teachers.

I built all the back wooden frames on which the end surface plywood boards would be screwed and fix them to the concrete wall.

Once all the isolation materials and electrical conduits have been concealed in the frames, I closed them up with additional soundproof sheets. I had to make sure that everything was flushed to the frames so I could close up with plywood sheet.

It looked much neater having the plywood sheets whole and aligned. I used plaster to fill the joints between the sheets then had the School's Maintenance guy do the Painting finish.

I built and installed the windows and doors which also contained soundproof materials. We had the room painted completely white so that the walls could welcome any artwork relating to music which the children would want on it.

I'm quite satisfied of the finish. Neat Paint job done by the school's maintenance guy really gave the room an expanded visual effect. Although there were a few little details to complete, we had to end operation due to the lockdown. When the school resumed, the children as well as the management were happy to discover the new classroom.