The BBC’s New Broadcasting House in central London consolidates nearly 6,000 staff members from the broadcaster’s network, which reaches a worldwide audience of more than 241 million people.

The overarching ambitions for the project work to bring previously disparate expertise together offering a collaborative open plan working environment, a live broadcast facility and a public destination. The design maximizes use of space, incorporates state of the art digital technology and creates a highly flexible environment that the BBC can easily adapt to meet its changing needs. The whole building is ‘on air’, turning the workplace into a live studio. This is now one of the worlds most televised workplaces.

We worked closely with the users developing a menu of activity based work settings. These provide users with opportunity to meet, engage, create, review, and concentrate. Brand identity is prevalent throughout, delivered through every available medium; Digital, colour, fabric and finish choice, colour changing LED lighting and a bespoke graphics package created from the material within the BBC archives.

The building boasts one of the worlds largest newsrooms for the worlds largest newsgathering facility which serves as a live backdrop for the 24hr news TV studio. For the first time in history; Radio, TV and On-line work together in the same space and share the same resources. We have already seen the next generation of quality output from this nexus.

The public demise features a media café capable of holding 400 audience members. The media café is a multifunction events space that can be sub divided into three rooms for key events and overlooks the newsroom.

Value was a key aspect for this project. Every part of the building is worked tremendously hard. The design delivered best practice planning efficiency, multifunctional use and future flexibility at every opportunity.