As designer for both the interior and exterior of WPLN/Nashville Public Radio's new 11,500 square-foot broadcast facility, RBDG was asked to marry its talent in both architecture and acoustics into this project.
Assisted by tax exempt bonds and listener contributions, the station was able to turn its dream of a larger, more customized facility into a reality. Three times the size of its old quarters, the $2.6 million facility was built from the ground up to accommodate technical and broadcast functions, as well as community involvement.
Taking into account the technical and functional needs of the facility, RBDG incorporated solutions that make it conducive for both station operations and accessibility to the station's listeners. This approach is evident in WPLN's four on-air and production control rooms. By optimizing the complex relationship among acoustical, architectural, and technical concerns, these spaces meld comfortable surroundings with superior sound quality. Their consistent size, layout, and equipment configuration allows the technical staff to handle program origination or feature and promotional production from any of these rooms.
Control rooms A & B feature Quested 2108 monitors and Wheatstone A6000 consoles for radio production. The A & B suites include identical studios that can accommodate an on-air host and several guests for interviews or call-in talk shows. The 750 square-foot Studio C was designed to accommodate large-scale programming such as live music, station fundraising, or performances involving a studio audience. The control room for this suite features Quested 2108 Monitors and a Mackie 24 x 8 console for multi-track recording and mixing.
A design element common to both the technical and the office areas of the facility is the extensive use of glass to carry daylight well into the building's interior and enhance transparency between interior spaces : a hallmark of RBDG studio designs. This feature is most evident in the multiple openings at the exterior walls of Studio C, as well as the full-height windows that separate the control rooms from the studios, all of which are constructed of 3/4-inch thick sound-rated glass.
To further optimize the acoustical environment within the technical spaces, RBDG outfitted the studios and control rooms with special acoustical clouds suspended from the ceiling and wall systems to direct, absorb and diffuse sound. Computer noise in these sound critical areas was eliminated by housing the broadcast equipment, audio mass storage systems, and network servers in a separate centrally-located technical center.
Aside from the improvement in aesthetics and functionality, WPLN's studios possess the latest technological advances in broadcasting. The facility has three digital editing rooms to take advantage of breakthroughs in tapeless editing. Record storage is optimized with Broadcast Electronics' Audio Vault program storage system. This state-of-the-art system automatically records, stores and plays back audio over a network and can be configured to operate without human intervention.