The construction of National Public Radio’s new state-of-the-art New York City Bureau was accomplished in five months. The midtown high-rise location presented numerous acoustic challenges, not least of which was the low slab-to-slab heights. The studio facility, which went on air at the start of 2007, meet and exceed the acoustic performance requirements established by NPR, and is winning praise from NPR talent and technical staff.

The studio layout enables each Tech Center / Control Room to work with any of the five Studio / Production Rooms. Large acoustic windows bring daylight into the studios, and provide good visibility between technical staff and talent, while achieving high levels of sound isolation.

A unique feature of the Tech Rooms is the use of perforated acrylic sheet at the window behind the control position. The microperforated absorber was installed at an angle to the glass behind to increase the bandwidth of the Helmholz resonator created by the assembly.