It’s tomorrow’s world as new BBC HQ revealed
It is one of the most ambitious building projects ever seen in Wales – and now new details have revealed the technology behind BBC Cymru Wales’ new £120m headquarters.
Once the shell and core of the building is handed over to the public service broadcaster next spring, so will begin an intensive 18-month technology-driven fit-out of the new HQ, designed by leading architectural firm Foster + Partners.
That cutting-edge technology will include underground fibre-optic cabling directly linking the building to the Principality Stadium, which stands just yards away from the new HQ.
The cabling will for the first time allow BBC Wales sport and news teams to have instant editing access to images from sporting events at the stadium.
There are also plans for a virtual reality-enabled studio and the building will also be the first at the BBC to use llve IP (internet protocol) technology, ensuring BBC Wales is flexible and ready for the future.
There will be around 750 work desk spaces, but it is not envisaged that all 1,200 staff will ever be in the building at the same time.
And if so, it has the fallback of around 1,000 spaces in the collaboration and meeting-room spaces around the building.
BBC Wales has yet to finalise its staff migration programme but it will see the first staff, most likely in nonnews administration roles, moving into the building in autumn 2019.
The plan is to have all staff in the building in the first quarter of 2020.
The news studio – one of two – is expected to have a hard set design, but will use virtual and augmented reality to create a more engaging experience with audiences.
Unlike the existing news studio, where a programme changeover can take hours, within 10 minutes, say, of Wales Today being aired, it could be used for another broadcast.
The studio will be divided from the newsroom by a windowed partition.
The building, which will also house technicians from S4C, will have retail units, including a coffee shop, on the ground floor.
On completion the rest of the building will be owned by financial service giant Legal & General, with the BBC having agreed a 25-year lease.
Sight lines have been designed for staff to see into other departments, encouraging collaboration.
And the public will be able to walk through the atrium, the heart of the building – which will be used for events and filming, utilising lighting systems from the floors above. It will also have:
A water capture system to feed into the water supplies of its toilet facilities;
a garden area on the fourth floor, which will be used for filming such as weather forecasts;
200 spaces for bikes in the basement, with shower facilities;
the basement will also be able to accommodate outside broadcast trucks, as well as a limited number of car-parking spaces.
The building will be half the size of its existing 1960s-built Broadcast House in Llandaff, and around the same size as the main broadcast building at BBC’s flagship Salford Quays development in Manchester.
Over a decade it is expected to have a direct or wider economic impact of £1bn.
BBC Wales has also announced plans to provide new training opportunities to more than 250 people over the next two years, including an additional 20 full-time, paid trainee and apprenticeship placements.
The scheme will focus on attracting people from under-represented communities, putting them through an intensive training programme designed by the BBC Academy.
Director of BBC Wales, Rhodri Talfan Davies, said: “We’re building careers for the future.”