Dark Vs. Light at Stereo D, Designed by Quadrangle

The balance of light and dark in a workspace is a nuanced quality that designers must achieve to ensure the wellbeing of the people using that space. And a general guideline designers are trained to follow is to provide as much light (natural if possible) as the space can sustain.

But what if this logic falls in direct conflict with a client’s work style?

Stereo D, a high-tech media giant that renders stereoscopic 3D content for commercials, TV shows and top-grossing feature films, sought to expand its base in California and India to an office in Toronto, tapping into the city’s highly skilled talent pool of digital artists.

And the way Stereo D works is well – in the dark. Animators and digital artists at Stereo D spend hours in near complete darkness as they work on rendering projects. Their new Toronto space, designed by Quadrangle, required a really low level of light and glare on their screens, as well as a really high level of security.

“It kind of goes against everything we’re taught in design school,” said Vera Gisarov, senior associate at Quadrangle. “It’s a very different type of tech office, with a dim and moody environment rather than a typical tech office, which is often splashed with bright colors and ultra-light spaces. It’s a good example of a very different take on what the trends are.”

Stereo D’s new building is a great space; settled in Liberty Village, a growing creative and tech hub in the city’s west end, it’s a former Canada Bread factory, one of many century-old industrial, heritage-listed buildings that fill the neighborhood.

Since the building dates back to the early 1900s, the project required a lot of technical knowledge to convert 45,000 square feet of industrial space into a specialized, high-tech work environment that would help Stereo D attract and retain top talent in the field.

The new space communicates a strong point-of-view to Stereo D’s clients – flexing its tech expertise muscles amidst studio vibes supported by spacious, light-filled common areas.

In designing the main work areas, the Quadrangle design team thought carefully about the animators’ needs and daily experiences.

“While most animation studios have ad-hoc desks, we felt there would be great impact in providing each person with a spacious personal area, a comfortable chair (SAYL chairs by Herman Miller), and a new, ergonomic workstation (BIVI by Steelcase) that includes shelving and drawers for their personal effects,” said Quadrangle principle Ted Shore, in the project description. “The office is practically paperless, but staff tend to enjoy personalizing their space with movie props and trinkets, and we gave them space to do this proudly.”

Just 20 private offices follow the perimeter, while the interior holds the remainder of primary work zones, in an open studio space for 400+ artists.

Located near the pools of workstations are four viewing rooms and a state-of-the-art 30-seat screening theater that staff and clients can use to review segments during every phase of production.

“The viewing rooms and theater had to be their own entity acoustically; you can’t get any vibration from the rest of the building,” said Ms. Gisarov. “It was a challenge trying to work with and not penetrate the existing beam structure…It required a lot of coordination to build this type of facility – with everything from ventilation and cooling to acoustics and power; the client required much more power tech and efficiency than the average office.

“But we [Quadrangle] work in a lot adaptive reuse and technology-rich media and creative spaces, so the project was a really good fit for us.”

Seeking to find a counterpoint to the darkness penetrating Stereo D animators’ workspaces, Quadrangle developed a sequence of spacious, light-filled breakout and amenity spaces for team members.

At the center of the office is a sky-lit “central park” atrium, filled with different types of gathering and lounge spaces. This space serves as a gathering hub with vintage furniture and a series of gigantic clocks that Quadrangle repurposed from old machinery parts left behind from the building’s bread factory days.

“We redesigned a lot of old machinery pieces from an old boiler room and other artifacts into light fixtures and things like that,” said Ms. Gisarov.

Employees enjoy a large, domestic-style kitchen with direct access to an outdoor patio, a wellness room, additional multipurpose rooms, and a “chill space” located directly off of a 20-person training room. The office is also equipped with bike racks, showers and lockers, encouraging alternative forms of transportation.

“We wanted to accent the natural qualities and aesthetics of the space, and so we used the natural column lighting and beautiful beaming as often as possible, and more subtle, neutral finishes.”

Staying true to the building’s character and history was accompanied by a secondary aesthetic goal of creating a theater-like mood as well.

“We wanted to create a theater-like mood – they’re creating major motion pictures, so we wanted to celebrate that.”

To that end, Quadrangle used over-scale red theater drapes in the atrium and other small touches reminiscent of a theater experience.

At Stereo D, Quadrangle managed to achieve a balance of tough competing design interests; the new space celebrates the building’s history and capitalizes on its strengths in natural light and beam structures while successfully supporting an intense tech work style.