The School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (HASS) held a ribbon-cutting last fall to celebrate the grand opening of its new media studio. The redesigned 1,700-square-foot space includes an audio control room, video control room, audio-visual lab, isolation booth, and an audio and video production studio.

The facility will be used for sound and video recording classes as well as integrated media performances. For this reason, it was built with audio and video connectivity to existing facilities on campus, such as the Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center and the Cognitive and Immersive Systems Lab (CISL).

“From this Media Studio, we can now record pristine audio and video directly from a live performance on the EMPAC stage, or from a virtual performance taking place on the CISL soundstage,” says President Shirley Ann Jackson. “We are poised to redefine a holistic artistic and scientific vision using these state-of-the-art tools to create impactful, high-definition, broadcast-quality productions.”

“The HASS Media Studio will provide new opportunities for collaboration across Rensselaer,” says Mary Simoni, dean of HASS. “We are proud to continuously offer our students and faculty new ways to break the mold of traditional disciplines and discover connections among art, science, and technology.”

The studio serves as a vital part of Art_X, a campuswide initiative designed to show students the interconnection of art, science, and technology and that interdisciplinary collaboration is essential in solving the world’s greatest challenges. By providing a new experimental environment where artists, scientists, engineers, architects, and business experts can come together, the HASS Media Studio will help advance the Rensselaer signature research thrust in media, arts, science, and technology.

Rensselaer partnered with Walters-Storyk Design Group (WSDG), an internationally recognized architectural design and consulting firm. WSDG has a history of expertise in designing media studios for colleges and universities such as New York University and the Berklee College of Music.

“Education remains one of our primary interests at WSDG,” said founding partner John Storyk. “We were honored to have been awarded the RPI studio design commission, and we are proud to add this impressive teaching complex to our project list.”