Project Description
Overview
Cincinnati Public Radio (WVXU/WGUC/WMUB) is the public radio station servicing southwest Ohio, southeast Indiana, and northern Kentucky. The two story headquarters is a ground-up, mass timber building that includes multiple production facilities and offices, as well as an outdoor plaza that is open to the public and available for live performances.
Program
The design team was tasked with completely reimagining CPR’s production facilities and capabilities. As the facility would exist within a new, ground-up build, this allowed for a very different environment than CPR’s team has traditionally had access to. The space and community-forward focus of the new HQ inspired a very public, forward-facing work environment that would emphasize multiple production spaces with a high degree of visibility and accessibility. Emersion Design served as Executive Architects of the project, WSDG was the lead acoustical and A/V system designer for the production spaces, and Co-Designer on the acoustic design for the rest of the facility. Procraft Media was the A/V integration team and on-site installers.
Design
One of the driving design principles of the entire building was a sense of openness – epitomized by CPR’s open office plan and Emersion Design’s extensive use of glass interior and exterior windows for bountiful natural light. WSDG utilized various expert techniques in acoustic isolation and treatment design to promote the proper sonic environment in various areas of the building – specifically a calm working atmosphere in the offices, a lively but controlled atmosphere in the performance and shared Gathering Space, and a production-ready atmosphere in the critical listening areas. All rooms also utilized ‘room in room’ construction for acoustic isolation in order to prevent sonic contamination between areas.
Procraft evolved WSDG’s design and integrated a distributed audio and video system for the office spaces that is fully routable and controllable from the main control system. This can be utilized to play live studio audio as well as music or announcements. Ample training of the CPR engineering staff also gives them the ability to adapt the design based on their needs in the future.
The heart of CPR is its two on-air studios, dual interview studios with corresponding control rooms, and a large performance studio with an isolation booth. There are also separate video and immersive-capable audio control rooms that can be routed around the facility as well as be utilized to turn The Gathering Space into an additional recording area. The video production system is fully integrated to be operated from this central location with cameras installed strategically around the facility.
The large performance studio can be utilized for anything from large ensemble performances, to rock bands, to film scoring, to film screenings. The studio also features a full production lighting setup for video. Following in the footsteps of other ambitious public radio studios, CPR intends to utilize these capabilities to create a strong footprint of video streaming for all manner of music, theater, and video content.
The design for the A/V systems progressed markedly from WSDG’s initial brief, with specifics honed by WSDG and Procraft with the CPR production staff as they came to embrace a more ambitious scope of present and future production possibilities. The end result is a facility that is state-of-the-art, with ample room to grow and evolve as technology and radio trends move forward.
Renderings courtesy of emersion DESIGN
Links
Visit Cincinnati Public Radio Official Website