WSDG has completed its work on Studio Basel, a new production facility for Swiss national radio and TV broadcaster SRF. The facilities include two live radio drama rooms, two smaller recording rooms, a control room, auditorium, and more than a dozen radio production rooms.
Located in the Meret Oppenheim high-rise (MOH), the building was constructed by Basel architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron, and provides three floors of production suites and open-office areas, all of which have been engineered by WSDG to ensure acoustically precise working areas for SRF’s wide variety of broadcast and recorded programming.
The WSDG team, led by WSDG Project Engineer Robi Hersberger, worked in conjunction with Basel architects Diener & Diener, who handled the interior buildout, and TPC (a division of SRF), which handled A/V systems integration.
‘We developed an acoustical treatment concept that worked for as many rooms in the project as possible,’ Hersberger says. ‘The concept’s core was to give each room very efficient absorptive ceilings.’
‘With these in place, different types of wall panels can then be used to achieve the remaining necessary treatment. This not only helped to keep costs down, but also allows for maximum flexibility for the spaces in the future. What was challenging however was determining how to implement this with equal effectiveness in rooms that have differing specifications.’
Hersberger used WSDG tools such as the CATT-Acoustic simulation platform and R&D Team ABEC3 acoustic boundary element calculator to simulate and plan out the various rooms and ensured that they would have consistently high-quality acoustics while addressing the production needs of each.
Studio Basel’s two live radio drama rooms required the highest-quality room acoustics and flexibility to serve the breadth of SRF’s programming. The largest of the rooms is designed to accommodate a variety of live drama scenarios with multiple actors and is capable of playing host to fictional indoor environments.
Mobile panels, gobos and curtains provide a variety of ambiances. The smaller radio drama room is acoustically dry with no reflections from wall or ceiling, allowing it to be used for drama settings that take place in outdoor environments.
Hersberger achieved the team’s acoustics goals using broadband absorption ceiling panels and the RPG Acoustical Systems BAD Panels. ‘What makes these panels special is that in addition to providing absorption, they also can give you a bit of scattering as well,’ he explains. ‘This is very important since SRF has a broad range of programming, and it allowed us to establish different room ambiances for different production needs.’
SRF’s staff moved into the new facility as production neared completion, which allowed WSDG to receive direct feedback from the station’s engineering personnel to ensure that the rooms were calibrated perfectly to meet their needs. ‘We continued having conversations with the production staff once they moved into the rooms and began using them,’ says Hersberger. ‘This allowed us to fine-tune the rooms in real time, and give them the best possible working environment.’
