A simulator room composed as architecture is among the most quietly satisfying rooms of the contemporary residence. A simulator room composed as an amenity reads, no matter the budget, as a hobby installed in a basement. The difference is the early design decisions. The ones taken before the launch monitor is specified.
The room as a private bay
The most resolved residential simulator rooms read as the private bays of a small club rather than as training rooms or video installations. The screen is present; the launch monitor is present; the hitting mat is present. But the room around them is composed with the materials and the lighting of a quiet lounge.
The reference is the practice bay of a serious golf club at the hour before play: warm light, heavy materials, deep colour, the equipment present but not announcing itself. This is achievable in a residence; it is also achievable on a budget that does not greatly exceed that of the same room composed badly.
“The reference is the private bay of a serious club. The equipment is present but quiet.”
Colour, depth, and the controlled light
The simulator room is a controlled-light room. The wall behind the impact screen and the ceiling above it should be a deep matte, near-black tone, Farrow & Ball's Pitch Black or Off-Black, Benjamin Moore's Black Beauty, that absorbs projector spill and renders the screen image at its full chromatic range.
The side walls and the back wall carry the opposite charge. Use a deep warm colour, burgundy, oxblood, deep tobacco, a saturated forest green, that returns the room to lounge when the projector is dark. Avoid neutral grey walls in a simulator room; they read as office at every hour the room is not in use.
The floor, within the swing zone, is turf or a flat low-pile commercial carpet. Beyond the swing zone, a deep area rug in a quiet pattern grounds the seating cluster and absorbs the acoustic of the strike.
The seating cluster
Seating belongs behind the swing zone, never beside it. A bench cushion is acceptable for very small installations; a three-person banquette in tobacco or oxblood leather, with a low table in front of it, is the considered standard.
The banquette serves three purposes. It seats the players not currently at the tee; it provides the visual termination of the room behind the swing; and it positions the small bar service and the launch monitor display where the host can attend to both without leaving the room.
Two leather club chairs at angles to the banquette, with a small ottoman between them, complete the cluster. This is the configuration of a small private lounge. And that is the impression the room should give when the projector is off.
The bar
A small bar in the simulator room is the single most consequential hospitality decision of the design. A simulator room without a bar requires the host to leave between holes; a simulator room with a small considered bar holds the gathering inside it for the full evening.
Specify a counter of eight to twelve feet in length along the wall opposite the screen, with a refrigerated cabinet beneath, glassware shelving above, and a small ice well at one end. The counter material, honed travertine, end-grain butcher block, oxidised steel, should belong to the material language of the rest of the room.
Cabinetry and the concealed mechanical
A simulator carries a real volume of mechanical and electronic equipment: the launch monitor's computer, the projector and its mount, the AV rack, the cooling fan, the cabling, the spare clubs, the gloves, the tees, the impact-absorbing accessories. All of this belongs behind cabinetry.
Specify a built-in cabinet wall on the side opposite the bar. Fully integrated, with concealed ventilation for the AV rack, drawers for the small equipment, and a section of open shelving for the personal effects of the room (a small framed scorecard, a single trophy, a photograph of a course).
The cabinet should be composed with the same materials as the room, walnut, oak, blackened steel, and detailed with the same restraint. Concealed lighting in the open shelves; recessed cup pulls or push-to-open detailing on the drawers; no hardware that announces itself.
“All of the equipment belongs behind cabinetry. The room reads as a room.”
Acoustic treatment
A simulator room without acoustic treatment is a room with a ringing strike. Acoustic absorption is mandatory; it is also the design decision most easily integrated into the room's material language.
Heavy wool drapery, even purely decorative, even covering a single wall, provides substantial low-frequency absorption. An upholstered banquette and a deep area rug provide mid-range absorption. A textured ceiling treatment, a wood-slat ceiling, a fabric-covered acoustic panel system, a coffered ceiling with absorptive backing, provides the high-frequency absorption that quiets the room without dampening conversation.
Acoustic glass at any window or partition that separates the simulator from adjacent rooms prevents the strike from carrying. Plan the room with at least one solid masonry or stud-and-drywall wall between the simulator and the residence's quieter rooms.
A note on the result
A simulator room composed with this discipline becomes one of the most occupied rooms of the residence. Used through the winter, during evenings, by adults and by children, with the projector on and with the projector off. It is the room the residence did not previously have and would not now release.
Our House composes simulator rooms, and the architectural envelope that contains them, across new and historic residences. Write to support@hevoran.com with measured drawings and ceiling height.
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