SINGAPORE
North elevation
TELEVISION CENTRE
T
FLEVISION Singapura had its hum-
ble beginnings from a small tem- porary studio in Radio Singapura at Caldecott Hill on February 15, 1963.
It was obvious even from that date that the temporary studio and its limited facilities would not cope with the various local cultural and envir-
onmental programmes, especially for the multi-lingual and multi-cultural Singapore society.
Inevitably a permanent building
was
needed for this fast growing means of mass communication and popular entertainment, and the Gov- ernment set about acquiring 12 acres of land adjacent to Radio Singapura. The site was an obvious choice be- cause of its proximity with Radio Singapura, giving the desired ad vantage of co-ordinating radio and television studio activities, grammes and administration.
рго-
Some 61⁄2 acres of this land was levelled for the new building and pro- vision was made for future expansion.
Functionally, the concept of the de- sign resolved itself into three basic elements, namely Production, Opera- tional and Administration. The prin- cipal area in Production, which dominates the ground floor area, is the four main studios.
Two of these are 30 ft. x 40 ft. x 28 ft. high and the other two are 60 ft. x 80 ft. x 34 ft. high. The floor finish is 11⁄2 in. thick magnesium
Far East Architect & Builder January, 1967
architects
ARCHITECTS DIVISION, PWD
MINISTRY OF CULTURE
HO BOCK KEE
clients
main contractor
oxychloride and is levelled to within plus or minus 1/16 in. over an area of 6 ft. x 6 ft. The scenery con- course, 80 ft. x 102 ft. x 12 ft. high, has direct access to all the studios.
Directly related to these are the ancillary rooms
Each of the four main studios has its own control rooms for produc- tion, lighting and sound. They are grouped together and separated only by glass screens to ensure visual con- tact between the operational per- Each control room has large double polished plate glass observa- tion windows to the studio, although operationally these are not critical, as the producer and his team view the activities in the studio on the moni-
tors.
sonnel. dressing, make-up. wardrobe, artistes' briefing and wait- ing. etc. The other essential facilities in Production are the dark rooms, film print, processing, cameras, de- sign and graphics, preview projection and preview theatres on the ground floor, and ten sub-titling rooms, a film library and various stores on the first floor. On the second floor are the film master make-up, film dub- bing theatre, two preview projection rooms. four preview theatres and six cutting rooms.
Nerve Centre
The nerve centre of the Opera- tional area is the central apparatus room, and allied to this are the mas- ter control. continuity, video tape. telecine and the four presentation studios, which are all situated on the second floor.
In the Administration areas on the first, second and third floors are the general offices for engineering, pro- ducers. programmes. commercial news and the reference libraries.
Attached to the main building, but separated only by expansion joints is the ancillary building which has the outdoor broadcast, garage, test room, workshop, staff room, electrical sub- station, stand-by generator room, air- conditioning, refrigeration plant room and the cooling tower. Directly op- posite to this block is the property store and staging workshop where all props are prepared before being stor-
41