This multi-phase $3 million project begun in 2011 consists of a series of additions and renovations to the Raleigh campus of the Capitol Broadcasting Company, which houses their corporate headquarters, sales and marketing division and broadcast studios for WRAL and Fox 50 Television. The project provides 8,000 square feet of new space and 6,000 square feet of renovated space, with a special emphasis on preserving the WRAL Gardens, and restoring the company’s original headquarters, a historically significant mid-modernist building designed by Raleigh architect Milton Small.

To preserve WRAL Gardens and the significant open space amenity it offers area residents, the new addition was positioned tight against the original Milton Small Building at the elevation of its underlying foundations. The addition is therefore partially underground, a design strategy that minimizes its visual and physical impact on the Small Building and adjoining gardens, and preserves views to the garden from the campus’s public interior and exterior spaces. The below grade position of the new addition and its covering with a landscaped green roof also minimizes the addition’s heating and cooling loads, resulting in appreciable energy savings.

Among the addition’s principal elements is a deep charcoal-hued masonry wall that slides into the existing grade, punctuated by a series of glazed openings drawing natural light into the work space beyond. A stout exterior elevator core and stair tower anchors the addition’s formal entrance, surmounted by a delicately crafted, translucent canopy.

Renovations to the Milton Small Building include upgrades to its finishes, technology and mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems that not only bring the facility up to contemporary standards of use, but also significantly reduce its consumption of energy. Changes to the building’s historically important exterior facades were limited to technical enhancements intended to improve environmental performance without altering the building’s original character.

For both the addition and renovation, Szostak Design procured a complete furnishings package for private offices, freestanding workstations and collaborative lounge settings. Szostak Design also recommended the acquisition of site-specific pieces of artwork and directed their installation.