Ear and Eye Candy

A marriage of talents for two artists - one in audio and the other one in visual. This studio gives us a taste of both worlds. 

View of the Recording area

It's difficult to write about this article without mentioning how the people behind it started out together, after all, this project is their first collaboration as artists. Interior Designer Bernice Flores was working at that time at Atelier Almario as a designer when she and Cyril Sorongon, also known as Silverfilter, started dating a few years back. Cyril, who is a music producer and musician specializing in electronic music, was already an established artist and has been performing in clubs and music events around the country. They were exclusively dating together for a while already when Cyril proposed to Bernice. To cut the love story short, they decided to tie the knot last January in a very romantic and avant-garde wedding ceremony. But before they got married, Cyril - who owns the Silverswitch studio, decided to renovate it with the expertise of Bernice.


Cyril did some research on fun and quirky studio designs and together with Bernice, they did the design concept for the studio. Taking inspiration from the funky sixties vibe in terms of colors and patterns, they translated this style in the contemporary look with clean and simple lines. This became their design direction for the whole studio.


One of the challenges in renovating the studio is the existing low ceiling of the rooms. With the narrow interior space area, the best option was to extend the ceiling higher to at least three meters, to give the space more vertical room. It was an old structure already and they had to make sure that the structural and ceiling supports can still make room for a ceiling extension. 

The Lounge area is where Cyril's band jam and practice together.
This is also where Cyrils entertains his clients while waiting for their recording session.

Since the existing space was quite narrow already, Bernice had the walls repainted in white to give an illusion of wider space. In the lounge area, Bernice designed a wooden archway-like feature in the middle of the white space to trick the eye to an effect of wider space.  To counter the heaviness of the dark walnut stained wood, it was back-lit all throughout from the floor to the ceiling creating a floating effect.

The wooden archway-like feature in the Lounge area is back lit all throughout.

In the recording area, two sets of built-in shelves flank the opposite sides of the room leading to the work station. The placement of the shelves is actually part of the acoustics which helps in distributing the sound properly. The shelves were designed with clean lines, concealed cabinet door handles and again, back lighting for that contemporary look. To address the acoustic requirements of the room, they sought the help of acoustic specialist, Francis Punch Aguado. They used double gypsum board treatment for the walls and acoustic tiles for the ceiling. For the work station, they installed additional vertically cut acoustic foam wrapped in taupe silk on both sides of the walls to lock the sounds.

Two sets of shelves flank both sides of the room to distribute the sound properly in the Recording area.

Vignette's of Cyril's special equipment, books and music magazines make up the shelves.

Inside the recording room, the acoustic foam on the walls was given a face lift  by enveloping it with a fun orange fabric, which the couple bought for a good price, and superimposing on it a wooden panel with geometric oval cut-outs in dark wenge finish. This gave the room that interesting sixties funk that the couple wanted.

The newly renovated Silverswitch studio is truly a refreshing transformation from the old studio where Cyril used to work at. This new studio is a true reflection of Cyril's exceptional talent in music, Bernice's creative eye for design and most important, the couple's capability to bring out the best in each other. 

Photos by Cyril Sorongon for Silverswitch Studio. Know more about Silverfilter at silverfilter.com