Client: British Broadcasting Corporation
Design: HOKSize: 44,000 sq m
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Cost: £1.1bn
Completion time: Two years for fit-out
The media landscape has changed a great deal since the BBC first crackled on to the airwaves in 1922; but ‘Auntie’, as the BBC is still sometimes known, still has a unique place at the heart of British life. Nowadays there are more TV and radio channels than you can shake a stick at, but the BBC still feels like it belongs to its audience in a way that many private media companies never will.
That feeling comes through especially strongly in HOK’s interior scheme for the BBC’s New Broadcasting House in central London. In an open entrance area, journalists mingle with tourists, and children throng around a life-size Dalek. There’s also an installation that enables visitors to film themselves doing a weather broadcast, as well as a large public cafe that overlooks one of the world’s largest live newsrooms.
The newly reopened building is the culmination of £1bn renovation project that has taken nearly 10 years and now supports some 6,000 staff. It is part of the broadcaster’s vision of ‘One BBC’ – the idea being to create ‘a simpler, more integrated digital service for audiences; and a simpler, more creative environment for staff’.
For the first time journalists from BBC News, Global News, Audio & Music and the World Service are together, in a 45,000 sq m multimedia environment which includes the 24-hour news channels, nine radio networks and 26 foreign language services, reaching a worldwide audience of more than 241 million people.
According to Daniel Herriott of HOK, the BBC was looking for ‘an inspiring, exciting and vibrant work environment. But the design needed to offer value for money, too, by making the best use of space and incorporating state-of-the-art digital technology to enable more efficient ways of working, and by making the workplace highly adaptable so that it can keep up with future developments. It was also important for the BBC that New Broadcasting House should provide greater access to the public, allowing people to interact with ‘their BBC’.
One of the greatest challenges for HOK Herriot says was making sure the interior scheme reflected the brand and ethos of the BBC as a single organisation, while also recognising the distinct identities of each department. It was specified in the brief that all of the interior spaces be suitable for broadcast use, which meant HOK had to use the BBC brand palette of red and oranges – making it a very different kind of project from the broadcaster’s northern HQ at MediaCity in Salford, whose interior scheme by ID:SR incorporates a diverse range of colour and pattern. For New Broadcasting House HOK used red globe lights by Tom Dixon throughout – referencing the red BBC globe logo introduced in 2008 to ‘unite’ various sections of BBC television broadcasting.
HOK also worked with the BBC’s in-house team of graphic designers to develop bespoke graphics to celebrate the distinct identity of each department. On each floor graphics have been used to name the glass meeting rooms, celebrating BBC talent past and present, while for the World Service graphics pay homage to colleagues lost in conflict. Other graphics form a backdrop to railway-carriage-style booth-seating, depicting the cities – such as Los Angeles and Kabul – where the BBC has a presence.
At the heart of New Broadcasting House is the newsroom, a column-free space, surrounded by technical areas and day-lit by an eight-storey-high atrium. ‘It was crucial that the news floor be designed to stand up to the pressure and demands of a 24-hour news cycle,’ says Herriott. HOK worked with news editors to test different designs using furniture mock-ups. The resulting design helps to channel news stories between teams, editing suites and broadcast studios located around the edge of the news floor. ‘V-Pods’ – bespoke telepresence modules – are designed to provide additional studio space.
From its research HOK determined that it was vital the news teams have private space in the newsroom, especially for news editors to research and develop stories. HOK designed eight types of private meeting rooms, categorised as either collaborative or discreet working spaces, including rooms, ‘pods’ and high-backed chairs which can give the user some privacy.
HOK designed two live-broadcast areas on the second and fifth floors, providing space for broadcasting online video, TV and radio, and 50 radio and editing studios. Flexibility and adaptability of recording space was paramount, says Herriott, and HOK worked with technical specialist Ramboll UK to develop 23 lightweight glass studio boxes which allow live radio be broadcast to a global audience at short notice.
Each studio has a light box surrounding the top that is used as an external indicator – amber indicates rehearsals, red means ‘on air’. Using glass for a radio studio is unusual, says Herriott, but allows studios to be controlled from outside.
Herriott says that sustainability was of the utmost importance in this project, so furniture, materials and lighting had to have sound environmental credentials as well as being highly durable and attractive. More than 50 per cent of the furniture specified comes from British manufacturers and almost half of that is from small and emerging companies, including Brightonbased Dare Studio.
On the top floor of the new HQ are the new Radio 1 and 1Xtra studios, the first purpose-built facilities for the BBC’s flagship radio station. ‘The Radio 1 and 1Xtra studios, while part of New Broadcasting House, posed a distinct design challenge,’ says Herriott. ‘From incorporating large studio space for live music, to facilitating an increased focus on…interactive content, to creating a comfortable space for Radio 1’s numerous guests, the unique space was designed with flexibility at its core.’
HOK’s design focused on embodying the iconic Radio 1 and 1Xtra brands, representing the heritage of the station while recognising the current audience and celebrating new music output. The colour scheme of purple and blues is distinct from the New Broadcasting House palette.
Throughout the space, bespoke graphics celebrate the station’s audience and creative output – audience graphics taken from images of a Radio 1 festival adorn the Green Room, while messages and autographs of current artists are displayed in the entrance.
Emphasis on emerging talent is represented through the selection of loose furniture from up-and-coming British brands, including Hendzel + Hunt, creating unique collaboration and flexible working spaces.
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