BBC New Broadcasting House | HOK

BBC

BBC New Broadcasting House is the new state of the art, multimedia broadcasting center in the heart of London. It is a collaborative production of HOK, MacCormac Jamieson Prichard, Sheppard Robson. This world class facility is the iconic new home for the BBC’s network and global services in Television, Radio, News and Online.
Delivering the vision of ‘One BBC’, the New Broadcasting House serves a simpler, more integrated digital service for audiences and more creative environment for staff. For the first time, journalists from BBC News, Global News, Audio & Music and World Service have been brought together in a 484,375 square feet living multimedia environment. New Broadcasting House is a home for nearly 6,000 staff, three 24 hour news channels, nine radio networks and 26 foreign language services, reaching a worldwide audience of over 241 million people.

The bringing together of BBC people and services into one integrated state-of-heart media center created unprecedented opportunities to drive collaboration, knowledge sharing and creativity between BBC programs and departments. The BBC was looking for an interior design partner with cutting-edge innovative solutions to create an inspiring, exciting and vibrant work environment to capitalize on this opportunity. From the outset, the BBC was clear that the design needed to offer value for-money by making the best use of space. It incorporated a leading digital technology to raise the quality and enable more efficient ways of working and be highly adaptable to ensure that the New Broadcasting House keeps pace with future technological developments.

It was also important for the BBC that the New Broadcasting House provides greater access to the public, allowing people to interact with their BBC.
HOK’s interior designing over here is one of the ‘largest, most complex’ workplace schemes in London over the past 50 years promoting collaboration among the BBC’s creative people. The challenge for HOK was to ensure that the interior designs reflect the brand and ethos of the BBC throughout, whilst still recognizing the distinct identities of different BBC departments. It was critical that all of the backdrops within the building be suitable for broadcast and therefore HOK had to rely entirely on the BBC brand palette of red and oranges.

The design maximizes the use of space, incorporates new digital technologies and creates a highly flexible environment that the BBC can easily adapt to meet its changing needs. This brand consistency allows the BBC to broadcast from most locations in the headquarters.
Flexible workstation clusters with extra data and power outlets accommodate changing team sizes. Other formal work spaces include 57 meeting rooms and 72 touchdown areas.

The building provides a variety of spaces for informal collaboration. Quiet, one-on-one spaces are grouped around the perimeter of the two large atria. A series of back-to-back booths, or railway carriages, facing the atria provide a collaborative space on each floor.

Lord Chris Pattern, Chairman of BBC Trust, commented, “It provides us with a building which brings together the heart and soul of the BBC and its journalism in one place for the first time and whose benefits we hope will be reflected in great output for audiences in years to come”.

 

Project Information:
Project: BBC New Broadcasting House
Architects: HOK, MacCormac Jamieson Prichard, Sheppard Robson
Location: Fitzrovia, London, UK
Construction Period: 2013
Consulting Engineer: Ramboll UK
Construction Engineer: Bovis Land Lease
Interior Design: HOK
Management: Land Securities Development