900sf broadcast studio
8,000sf of technical and administrative space.
Architect and Designer: Bogdanow Partners Architects
Contractor Headlines – Democracy Now! new Studio
Amy Goodman discusses new Democracy Now! Studio (22:55 mark)
Sound Business: Consultant brings expertise to studio spaces
Democracy Now had been working on borrowed time, for over 13 years they were working out of an old firehouse in the Chinatown section of NYC. When they started there they had 3 employees and produced 5 hourly radio shows a week. By the end of 2008 they had 30 employees and were producing 250 radio and television shows a year.
In late 2008 Karen Ranucci, my client’s representative, showed me the new space they had selected for the new Democracy Now headquarters. It was an old industrial printing house posing many structural, environmental and aestheic challenges. Our original objective was to seek LEED Silver certification while keeping within the proposed budget.
Through smart choices and sharp management, we have increased our LEED certification level to 47 conservative points and we are now a LEED Platinum hopeful. The project was built using 100% wood from managed forests, using low or no VOC materials and obtained products.
Additionally we used an abundance of post and pre-consumer recycled content material, re-used many industrial elements of the original space (such as stripping the old factory windows and re-installing them into the walls of the perimeter offices in order to bring the daylight further into the space.) To date, we have even been able to recycle over 80% of construction debris through proper sorting and carting. We are presently under budget.
