A New Home for Inuit Broadcasting Corporation

By Graham Chandler

When the Inuit Broadcasting Corporation (IBC) needed a new home in Iqaluit, they knew it would be a challenge. The building would need to have specialized audio and video systems and a new building, all on a tight budget, without impacting ongoing and scheduled programs and production. The solution? Team up with a specialized construction company. The new facility was long overdue. “We were in a very old building which was never designed to be a television production facility,” says Debbie Brisebois, executive director of Inuit Broadcasting Corporation. “And it was in need of extensive renovations.” Importantly, the old building lacked a fully digital high-definition facility to comply with industry standards. IBC needed the capability to continue production of Inuktitut language television programming for distribution while still providing capacity for future growth. And there was also the storage question. “We needed a safe and appropriate facility to store our 30-plus years of archival material,” says Brisebois. A final consideration was, “We wanted to be the (eventual) owners of our facility rather than renting.” All of which pointed to a higher capital budget, and that’s where NCC Development worked with IBC to offer a solution. “We worked their numbers backward to see what value of a building they could afford based on the amount of debt they could service,” explains Clarence Synard, vice president of NCC Development. “We came up with a budget for the building on that. Then we looked at their programming needs (and) everything they would need in that building.”

IBC wanted an attractive design that would be highly visible and welcoming, with cost-efficient and flexible space. And there were unique needs. “Certain areas required very specific attributes – namely the studio and the archive storage and public area,” says Brisebois. “The studio required certain height and capability to accommodate specialized sound and lighting specs. The archival section required specific humidity control.” Several of these needs meant specialized techniques not often seen in the north. “The humidity requirements for all the storage rooms was new to us because we hadn’t done that type of special purpose building before,” says Synard. Another major challenge, he says, was attention to preventing sound transmission between rooms, especially the studio and the editing rooms. “We got into a lot of different wall systems and special purpose materials that we hadn’t been accustomed to,” he says. Compounding the noise challenge was the studio’s location at the back end of the building which was close to the airport. Then there were the usual permafrost protection needs. For the foundation, NCC used thermal siphons. The site was excavated down to permafrost and then built back up with a type of fill that doesn’t hold water. “As you come up in layers, you put in these thermal siphons,” explains Synard. “It’s a closed system—in the pipes, there is a combination of CO2, helium and a few other things. When heat is transferred from the slab or from the sun, the mixture reaches a boiling point and turns into a gas. Thermistors on the outside of the building dissipate the heat. As soon as the heat is removed it goes back down.”

Scheduling sailed along smoothly for a while. The go-ahead to order materials was given between May 1st and 15th of 2014 and the first materials arrived on time by sealift during the third week of July. Construction started on-site around the first week of August that year. All went well at the beginning. The skeleton of steel was erected and crews were all set to start cladding and roofing in September, hoping to take advantage of the late summer weather. Then, a major hiccup. “We had a big error with our middle supply company and our product wasn’t here on the ground,” says Synard. It was a real setback for the schedule—the site sat empty for 49 days with no activity at all. The missing shipment was finally flown in during mid-November and the work caught up. “We still had the building exterior closed up before Christmas,” Synard says. Despite losing the favorable above-freezing construction window and having to work in temperatures of minus 20 to minus 40 as a result of the shipping delay, “we were able to successfully turn the building over on time with no cost implications back to the client.” The building was essentially complete by March 2015.

Meanwhile, IBC had schedules and deadlines to keep. “We had a very short window to move from our previous location and could also not afford much downtime as we had production commitments that had to be met,” says Brisebois. “But I have to say that NCC was amazing in terms of adapting the construction schedule in order to avoid delay and still meet the schedule.  We also had a very firm budget which did not allow for any variance.  I’m happy to say that the whole project was completed on time and on budget.” IBC completed its first phase of production equipment installation in early spring 2015. Phase 2, the more complex stage, was the installation of the studio equipment. Originally scheduled for early September, Phase 2 equipment shipping was delayed due to ice conditions that delayed the landing of freight on this year’s sealift, but things are almost caught up now, says Brisebois —with the continued help of NCC. “All the equipment racks and consoles have been installed, kilometers and kilometers of cable have been pulled,” she says. “Cameras and tripods are being assembled.” By late October, studio drapery and lighting installations were underway. Then staff was scheduled for training on the new studio operational equipment and systems. “We are also in the process of working with APTN (our broadcaster) to have a link installed from our studio to the satellite uplink – our live phone-in show will be broadcast starting in January,” says Brisebois. The grand opening was held on December 2, 2015. Completion of the building demonstrated the value of teamwork, reckons Synard. “It was pretty remarkable how the entire group worked together,” he says. “Everyone worked together as a team with the overall goal of getting a building IBC could use and that they could afford.” It earned NCC a bonus: an operations and maintenance contract for the life of the building. CN