Multimodal WFH setup: flight SIM, EE lab, and music studio in 60sqft/5.5M²

https://www.sdo.group/study

by brunohaid • 12 months ago

274 126 12 months ago

_fat_santa• 11 months ago

It's cool but also kinda wild to hire a design firm to figure out the layout of your home office. Personally my home office is very "personal" and one of the things I enjoyed the most is figuring out where everything should go.

To me this is the same as hiring a development firm to build you a set of dotfiles.

brcmthrowaway• 11 months ago

This person is probably overemployed and making $1M

ubb_server• 11 months ago

What makes you think that?

tobr• 11 months ago

If this was a write-up about someone’s personal WFH office setup, it would be pretty cool. Written as a case by a design firm it seems very underwhelming. It just looks like a tiny room crammed with equipment. Wouldn’t you at least go for custom-made shelving to use every last millimeter of the room as well as possible?

ajcp2• 11 months ago

If you read the writeup you'll see that it was part aesthetic choice and price consideration.

ajcp2• 11 months ago

The client is the "design firm". The website is for their own firm and they used their own office in their portfolio.

dpc_012342• 11 months ago

How do you call these plug into holes every inch frames used for this? I could use something like this for related projects.

cameron_b• 11 months ago

I'm guessing you mean the support structure for the desk and shelves, which seems to be a nicer version of something like

https://www.uline.com/Product/Detail/H-4814/Wide-Span-Storag...

or perhaps the same thing ( in several sizes ) with a coat of gloss paint

evanjrowley3• 11 months ago

There really is no precise name for these.

Source: A technology hoarder who has too many shelves like this full of junk.

Edit: I stand corrected by @bobson381

I have several of these under the Gorilla Rack brand name and they're sold as Industrial Shelving Units. Home Depot in the US also sells these under the Muscle Rack and Edsal brands. These shelves are good, but I caution against using them in rooms with uneven floors (i.e., basement floors) because the feet are not adjustable. The particle board shelf surfaces can also deteriorate easily in moist environments. OP's shelf is one coffee spill away from a ruined shelf. That particle board is also made with formaldehyde and water damage will release it, FYI.

I have even more Wire Rack Shelves from various brands, all mostly with interchangable parts. A major brand is Nexel. There's also a lot of good parts available through the Metro brand sold by The Container Store. I appreciate the Wire Rack Shelving for it's modularity, adjustable feet, and also the ability to use caster wheels. You can always cut your own solid shelf surface from whatever material you like. The drawback is these Wire Rack Shelves cost twice as much as the Industrial Shelving Units.

dpc_012342• 11 months ago

Thanks. Good pointers.

I do have a whole rack in a garage kind of like it, but I was hoping I could get something nicer and painted like in the article, ideally with different length elements, so I could make custom furniture from them, and then just cut MDF boards to size or something.

mxfh• 11 months ago

Why not some finished birch plywood for surfaces you work on? I get worried about my wrists just looking at that particle board.

bobson381• 11 months ago

Teardrop shelving! For the shape of the holes.

brunohaid21• 11 months ago

Most common term in the US is something like Boltless Shelving, specific shelves used here were https://www.globalindustrial.com/c/storage/shelving/boltless...

ramses0• 11 months ago

Also look into "SuperStrut" https://www.google.com/search?q=superstrut

mattlondon• 11 months ago

FWIW I used similar IKEA units.

Cheap and flexible, although the way they work is different (uprights have holes drilled every 2cm or so for their entire length, and you insert metal dowels at the height you need and the shelves clip into that.

What sold it for me was that the IKEA ones are made of wood, so it makes it trivially easy to modify - cut a bit out here, screw something in there etc. This made it ideal for my shed workshop build where I needed some customisations for awkward tools and I could put a workbench exactly where I want it just by screwing it in. Finally just screw the uprights together and into the wooden walls of the shed and you have a rock-solid custom-built racking system that can be reconfigured and modified easily.

jasonpeacock• 11 months ago

That's a lot of words for "We put some industrial shelving in a closet with a keyboard and computer monitors, and we made it all beige."

FirmwareBurner3• 11 months ago

How else do you think designers can justify their inflated rates? Wrap it in in a fancy word salad to elevate it and sell it to wealthy urbanites.

Reminds me of that scene[1] from the Silicon Valley TV show where that designer was tasked to design a server box and he started the meeting showing random pictures to the CEO with some bongo drum soundtrack in order to "establish a common vocabulary" lol, or the brand manual of the infamous Pepsi logo redesign fail[2] full of made up geometrical nature BS stories that the agency pulled out of their ass to milk Pepsi, which I'm sure is what the satire form Silicon Valley was based on.

At this point, I think designers just operate on the basis of "a fool an his money are easily parted".

[1] https://youtu.be/qyLv1dQasaY?si=yUwQU-9EQL3QMxbi&t=6

[2] https://old.reddit.com/r/Design/comments/hspqgd/pepsi_logo_r...

loa_in_• 11 months ago

It's not foolish. Design is subjective and it's most often a question with no objectively good answer, so it's between the designer and whoever appraises his output. There's no secret design paradigm that makes everyone happy.

aosaigh2• 11 months ago

This is such a childish and cynical take. Just because you fail to see something, doesn't mean it's not there.

isoprophlex2• 11 months ago

I'm sorry this clearly isn't beige, this is the color of simple warm and transparent functionality of contemporary Korean and Japanese hospitality and retail spaces!

iknowstuff• 11 months ago

Haha this is the “Place, Japan ” meme

outside1234• 11 months ago

"The software you just built is a complicated version of what I could have built in Excel."

fock• 11 months ago

and sadly not too many words on how they made sure those shelves don't vibrate and squeak horribly - which they will if no placed on perfectly smooth surfaces... I somehow could picture something like this to work out nice using metal structural framing - but the pricepoint then probably comes close to quite nice carpentry if you add some bells and whistles.

rlt• 11 months ago

Very cool, any maybe some people are better at managing clutter, but I would make a huge mess of this space in days.

The EE lab would put it over the top for me.

frostburg3• 11 months ago

Very underwhelming keyboard there, given the overall effort.

gruturo3• 11 months ago

That Das Keyboard is the only piece in the entire website I didn't quite dislike. But I'm biased as I'm typing this on one (although a Tenkeyless one - it's ridiculous to have a numpad, it's not the 80s).

The rest goes from "meh" to "gross" (that fibreboard is getting _nasty_ even with a bit of sweat over a few months, not to mention its raw edge is going to result in blood loss sooner or later)

brunohaid21• 11 months ago

Was concerned about splinters too, but if you compress and treat/seal it a bit, it works quite well, although they do get a bit gross after 2-3 years to the point where you should flip/replace them.

frostburg3• 11 months ago

The rest isn't particularly nice either but I would describe it more as "suboptimal decisions" than lack of effort.

They're not bad keyboards but you can get superior custom tenkeyless or even fullsize ones (if you must) without even having to deal with group buys now.

zevon• 11 months ago

The contrast between all that fancy equipment and the actual work surface being a cheap-as-can-be fibreboard (that will get nasty quickly and suck up all liquids) with a more or less unfinished edge that will probably feel uncomfortable is a bit too much of the designerly touch for me...

ahofmann• 11 months ago

Man, I got carpal tunnel syndrome just from looking at the edge of that fibreboard. I couldn't work at that "desk" for 20 minutes.

brunohaid21• 11 months ago

Like mentioned in other comments standing desk height, concerned about it initially as well, but gave it a try and quite happy with the surface (it compresses easily and bit of treatment prevents it from getting gross in 3 months).

pierrefermat1• 11 months ago

There is no contrast lol, if you actually consider the other gear choices he made they are all equally terrible. The god awfully un-ergo chair, poor measuring LS50's, junk keyboard......

0cf8612b2e1e• 11 months ago

Musical equipment in view of the camera, so that checks at least one requirement.

specproc2• 11 months ago

My rule of camera positioning is that I've got to have a load of my books as a backdrop.

vanchor3• 11 months ago

I'm glad they put the two pieces of Blackmagic gear in the $135 rack mount shelf, just to set it on top of the desk in the end.

brunohaid21• 11 months ago

Used to be in the rack (bottom left) initially, but fiddling with it down there eventually got too annoying.

perryh2• 11 months ago

Here is my COVID bathroom office: https://x.com/perryfromsoma/status/1351396588615204872

tomas789• 11 months ago

I love your setup. The ingenuity of such solution is outstanding. I have so many questions but I'm afraid to ask.

PeterStuer2• 11 months ago

Why is the chair under the desk facing the wrong way?

brunohaid21• 11 months ago

Oh, didn't think that'd make it to the front page, appreciated! OP and builder here.

The website was purely because a friend and I were looking for design work during lockdown and put together a couple of things we recently worked on, but basic design and build was a fun ~6 months solo project.

We had a good discussion on https://www.reddit.com/r/architecture/comments/1mlo6hu/tryin... over the weekend with more details, but also happy to answer any questions here.

Kiboneu• 11 months ago

Hi, where do you get your industrial shelving?

brunohaid21• 11 months ago

https://www.globalindustrial.com/c/storage/shelving/boltless...

DarmokJalad1701• 11 months ago

Sick flight sim setup!

I basically never sim now because of how much of a hassle it is to get the whole thing setup. And then it just sits taking up space on the desk and I don't use the desktop for anything else for a while.

brunohaid21• 11 months ago

Thanks! And: Same. It got much better since the early days of MSFS 2020, and tried picking gear that has solid drivers/good scripting APIs, but I also rarely get it out just for fun, for the same reasons (except the occasional barrel rolls in a TBM over Manhattan cravings). It is great to have for a bunch of practice runs before actually heading to a new airport for the first time though.

petcat• 11 months ago

It looks great, but, (no offense), that looks like the most uncomfortable home-office seating arrangement of all time. Your legs can't fit under the desk, and the low-back chair looks like it's for show, not sitting. I fear for your back!

brunohaid21• 11 months ago

None taken! Cut the shelving to my (elbows at 90 degrees) standing desk height and used it that way about 80% of the time, and for the rest the drafting height barstool like chair worked well, as the legs are naturally angled.

ejoso• 11 months ago

This is fantastic! Does this showcase mean that you’d be open to doing similar design/builds? I have a small space with similar requirements. Although about double the size of this…

aledalgrande• 11 months ago

This looks very charming, but how do you keep it dusted/clean practically?

brunohaid21• 11 months ago

Small room size helped a lot: Blueair HEPA filter with a (long, think Ostrich) feather duster for day to day, and ~ weekly wet wipe / vacuum.

z8• 11 months ago

This is honestly one of the most appealing WFH spaces I've ever seen. MDF desk tops aside (I would've gone with cherry), I love this. I'm gonna need to steal the idea with the central switch board and look into industrial shelves...

p0w3n3d• 11 months ago

What brand of keyboard (the music keyboard) do you have there? It's quite narrow isn't it?

brunohaid21• 11 months ago

Korg D1, indeed, good combination of solid full size keys in a slim package.

aosaigh2• 11 months ago

Well done, this is inspiring. I've bookmarked and downloaded the PDF for future renovations myself.

Looking through other comments here, it's absolutely wild how a tech-oriented audience are happy to completely disregard traditional design (interior, graphic, UI, ...), while championing technology design (systems & databases).

catskull• 11 months ago

Was the decision to not support reader mode deliberate or accidental?

NoSalt• 11 months ago

"Work from home is here to stay"

Sadly, this is not true for most of us. :-(

pm902• 11 months ago

While there has been a step down from the pandemic max, we are still at higher levels of WFH than ever before: https://theconversation.com/us-workers-with-remote-friendly-...

lbotos2• 11 months ago

At first I couldn't put my finger on why this website layout was beautiful but I was struggling on my 13" macbook: The two column text are too spaced apart, and really should be one column or closer together for readability.

brunohaid21• 11 months ago

Is it the line length that's tedious, or the columnar layout itself confusing?

lbotos2• 11 months ago

I think a little bit of both? I think UX wise I'm not expecting two columns on a website in between these "photo spreads".

nartho• 11 months ago

Just your average design studio's website

bee_rider• 11 months ago

I wonder—style is subjective and I think it looks nice. The floors are pretty and the rug looks comfy. Beige walls are, eh, well, safe pick I guess.

Preference disagreement: I absolutely need my workspace to be different from my gaming space, or I’d go totally nuts.

But, there’s an objectively correct answer for the placement of the camera, subject, monitors, and window, to avoid glare and getting washed out. Does anyone know if they did it right?

brunohaid21• 11 months ago

Took a bit of shuffling around, biggest challenge was getting a somewhat decent frame given the incredibly small space - main camera facing the window had simple Sigma MFT lens that worked in the end, with a hood on to make sure the ring light doesn't diffuse into it.

bevr1337• 11 months ago

Preference disagreement: I absolutely need my workspace to be different from my gaming space, or I’d go totally nuts

Preach. I made this wonderful office for myself. It's got name brand monitor stands, I only need one cable, the desk mat is cute, and there's a huge pegboard for all my work hardware.

After a month or so, I preferred working on the kitchen table with a laptop. Brains are funny things.

ajot• 11 months ago

Reminds me of the Nomadic Furniture book "cubicles". Here's an instructable showing something inspired by it.

https://www.instructables.com/The-Perfect-Instructable-build...

guhcampos• 11 months ago

This looks absolutely amazing, but since this is the Internet and people need to complain about stuff, I can't see the knit cloth mat working well with a wheeled chair!

brunohaid21• 11 months ago

Haha, very good (and true) observation - but turns out if you practice 6+ months, you develop a knack for pushing chairs over uneven terrain.

varispeed• 11 months ago

I wouldn't be able to work in such a space for long. It kind of "squeezes the brain" if I can paint such picture what it feels. Like walls are pushing your head in and you can't think and focus.

Unfortunately such situation, in countries where space is at massive premium, leads to wasted human potential. People would love to have hobbies, experiment but simple lack of space very much prevent that.

So if your parents are not rich or you yourself don't have a job that could let you rent a workshop or studio, then it is extremely frustrating and leads to depression. I know someone who got to the point of suicide, because he couldn't find any way to get space to pursue his interests. He felt like an absolute failure and that the world didn't want him to exist.

brunohaid21• 11 months ago

Hard to respond with something help - and/or meaningful, but still: my whole adult life oscillated (OK, oscillates) between being in the most incredible spaces and really shit situations, like being dependent on friends to crash on their sofas, live in literal garages, rebuild abandoned SROs etc for months while friends I grew up with had homes, kids, families etc. I just got lucky to be delusional / screwed up enough in just the right ways to keep going.

It's really hard to overcome that feeling once it's there, but you somehow have to find that space in yourself and through others. Some of the most talented and skilled people I know live in the weirdest places, but somehow managed to find their place. If you're lucky to live in a big city, check out spaces like Noisebridge or Resistor, or whatever your local equivalent is.

If that's not an option, maybe the internet can help. Don't know if for example engineering is your thing, but the reason I respect folks like IMSAI Guy or bigclivedotcom on Youtube so much isn't just that they really know what they're talking about, they also seem like really decent people and found their place. They don't seem to be particularly rich or fancy, and I'm sure they have their own stuff to deal with in their lives, but they kept going until they found their place. Long rant, hope it helps somehow/somewhat.

nottorp6• 11 months ago

Hmm. My home office is about the same length but double the width (room is like 10 sq meters). It only has computers and not music gear/flight sim controllers though, so less cluttered. And a proper ergonomic chair :)

But now that I think of it, most of the time I spend in there I'm sitting at my chair and looking at the monitors. I never look back. So I'm basically using the same space as this office.

Maybe subconsciously knowing i have some space behind me before I hit the wall helps...

koinedad• 11 months ago

I was looking for the multimodal LLM homelab…got really confused for a second

djtriptych• 11 months ago

Love the term multimodal WFH.

Like you I have diverse, equipment-laden hobbies: guitar/piano/dj/drums/photography and work from home.

It's really hard to feel like you can quickly get to all of those activities, without reconfiguring -anything- and creating spaces tuned to all those things.

Love that this approach is easy to change w/ the industrial wall shelving.

Also appreciate touching on some of the specialized equipment that tends to come into play.

brunohaid21• 11 months ago

That was one of the weirdest effects of the space - it almost felt like transitioning from affairs to a marriage, in a good way.

Before that, I often used to work out of random / public places, and I when I got really stuck just change scenery. Being able to switch modes built that weird sense of home, knowing that when I get stuck, I can switch modes for a bit and do / work on something else, and no matter what the space would be there for me. Hard to describe without sounding too prosaic, but really glad to have built it.

mmmlinux• 11 months ago

Those are some dusty remotes.

brunohaid21• 11 months ago

It took my about 3 days to get over it after seeing it on the final images.

ge96• 11 months ago

Something interesting with the pictures the grading maybe, they seem matte how I'd describe it amateurly, it looks good

brunohaid21• 11 months ago

Thanks! Had a really good camera & lenses for the day (Hasselblad X1D II with Zeiss Otus and Canon TS-E 17mm), and then post was mostly reducing colors besides brown/green/red hues a bit.

rcpt• 11 months ago

But where's the giant box of wires go?

brunohaid21• 11 months ago

If you swear at them long enough they start disappearing...

Mostly bottom of back shelves and behind vertical shelf beams.

pm902• 11 months ago

Its interesting how many of the comments here are criticizing the cost, the decision to commission a design firm, or that it just wouldn't work for them. In which case, great! You can choose however you want to do your home office. This person put in effort to both deliberately design their home office and to share it with everyone. That's pretty amazing! And even if I might not go the same way, there are def some very cool ideas from this that I will certainly look into : )

brunohaid21• 11 months ago

Appreciated!

specproc2• 11 months ago

Agreed. Too much negativity in the thread. I love seeing other people's offices, and having a blog that talks through the design decisions is great.

I've very different aesthetics and gear, but took ideas from this for sure. Loved the conferencing setup, for example.

sirnonw• 11 months ago

comfy

jahrichie• 11 months ago

What a peaceful setup. Which monitors are those?

brunohaid21• 11 months ago

Eizo CS2740, really happy with them. Weird anecdote: they weren't available in the US at the time yet, so I got them off amazon.co.jp, and it was the most impressive thoughtful multi-layer cardboard packaging I ever got from any reseller. Probably my disdain for Amazon worker treatment and appreciation for Japanese care no matter what, all standing there in one impressive confusing package.

larodi• 11 months ago

Next is - have it all in camper, solar, satellite and all.

dmillar• 11 months ago

Well, I see we have very similar hobbies and careers! Nice setup.

stavros2• 11 months ago

This looks cool, but I really don't understand the constraints here. You have high tens of thousands of dollars of gear, but can't afford a space larger than a closet for it? Where did the space constraint come from? Was it just to see if you could do it?

I'm just a bit perplexed as to how this particular combination of things came together.

Uehreka• 11 months ago

I hate to be a quote-TFA-and-say-nothing-else guy but:

Location: Brooklyn, NY

stavros2• 11 months ago

Yes, and?

ctz• 11 months ago

I can already feel the unfinished edge of the desk chipboard on my wrists. Such a premium finish!

skylissue• 11 months ago

Farting in here >>>

PeterStuer2• 11 months ago

"Given the spatial constraint, it became immediately clear that we'd need to increase the available horizontal space by layering shelves vertically, which yielded more area than the entire room floor space while only taking up a third of it."

This must be the most convoluted way I have ever seen for simply saying "I've put up some shelves".

esskay• 11 months ago

Maybe it's just me but this looks like a nightmare to get any work done. Way too cluttered and uncomfortable looking. That "Desk" if it can be called that just looks like someone nipped down to their local DIY shop and picked up some budget garage storage, slapped a bit of rough cut wood on it and called it a day.

jefc11112• 11 months ago

A little OT: It seems that so few studio monitors (speakers) have grilles. I have kids and I don't want to need to trust them, or to need to ban them. I believe Genelec have grilles but the price is a little high for me for the models with decent-sized drivers. Given that Genelec are so popular, I can't imagine presence-of-grille presents a fundamental compromise, sound-wise.

KRK seem to have grilles on theirs, but I want something with a flatter sound.

Any HN'ers out there got any tips?

brunohaid21• 11 months ago

The KEF come with cloth covers, but they're too elastic to deter a determined toddler. The smaller Genelec like the 8040's are quite protected and show up on somewhat trusted second hand sites like reverb.com for about ~$500-800 pair every now and then, which is hard to beat given the built in amps.

jefc11112• 11 months ago

Used 8040s is a good call. Nice price point (bit higher in UK though I think).

inatreecrown2• 11 months ago

speakers should ideally look down the long way of the room...

HelloUsername• 11 months ago

(2020) ?

gus_massa• 11 months ago

It appears in the capture in 2022 of the main page https://web.archive.org/web/20220215164019/https://sdo.group... but perhaps they posted it before that.

eawgewag• 11 months ago

I love small space office builds! I also have a tiny den. I would love to see more inspiration of how people use that kind of space, especially if it's (sadly) windowless, which I think makes it pretty hard

tracker1• 11 months ago

Nice to see what people put together... I'm hoping to do some custom desk builds etc in the next year or so myself.

My biggest change for my home setup has been moving away from a KVM with work and personal computers on a single desk to multiple desks where I'm physically moved. I prefer to have my feet on the ground, so don't like the drafting chair or barstool foot rests. I've also moved to 45" (U)WQHD displays (3440x1440) for my work spots. I have two Xeneon Flex and another display of the same size that's by LG.

It's kind of like 2x large 3:4 aspect displays glued together mostly pinning apps to half the screen on one side or the other. My vision is pretty bad, so having the larger pixels helps a lot for my visibility and being able to function. It's also worth noting that I didn't pay full retail for any of the screens. The Xeneon goes on sale for about half price every couple months on Corsair's site, and I picked up the LG as a return from BestBuy for about $550, which was a pretty good deal for what it is.

I also tend to prefer physical switch keyboards, currently backlit Das keyboards with Cherry-MX Brown switches. My mouse is a Logitech with a weighted scroll wheel. I do like the Unicomp keyboards more, but they're a bit more noisy so I settle with the browns.

ornornor• 11 months ago

The space looks nice but that seats looks very uncomfortable.

Multimodal WFH setup: flight SIM, EE lab, and music studio in 60sqft/5.5M²

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