Private Cinema Design | Westlake, CA

The starting point

A 30 by 40 foot commercial shell. The proportions were the first gift and the first problem: wide enough for real rows, deep enough for real tiers, and exactly the kind of rectangular concrete volume that punishes sound and traps air if you treat it as a container instead of an instrument.

The intent

Set before any design work: a true private cinema, not a media room. The difference is a standard. A media room tolerates compromise; a cinema is measured by what the audience never notices. No visible fixtures in the sightline. No acoustic artifacts. No environmental drift across a long runtime. The room's job is to vanish.

The room
Tiered seating on a stepped floor, 54 seats across 6 rows, every row's sightline resolved in the plan
A framed screen wall, the architecture converging on the picture
Layered ceiling planes stepping toward the screen, each carrying concealed linear light
Vertical slat wall surfaces performing the acoustic treatment as architecture
Warm mineral palette: plaster, wood, stone-toned floor, fabric seating
Planting at the room's edges, softening arrival without entering the sightline
The performance layer

Designed together, as one system, not specified trade by trade:

Acoustics. Isolation at the shell so the cinema neither leaks nor admits sound. Treatment inside the room integrated into the wall and ceiling architecture, tuned for dialogue intelligibility and controlled low frequency behavior in a rectangular volume.

Lighting. Concealed linear coves and recessed downlights only. Scenes for arrival, seating, feature, intermission, and egress. Nothing glows in the field of view once the picture starts.

Climate and air quality. A sealed room, a full house, a long runtime. Air exchange, temperature, and humidity designed to hold steady and silent from the first minute to the last.

Picture and sound specified: 25' Just Video Walls & JBL Synthesis
Technology: Neuroadaptive, The room moves through its states in support of human performance goals.

Scope
Spatial intent and architectural planning
Interior design: surfaces, finishes, seating, planting
Advanced acoustic design: isolation and treatment as architecture
Performance design: air quality, climate, and lighting as one system
Cinema picture and sound
Automation and control