In April, WSDG (Walters-Storyk Design Group) received a NAMM TEC Award for Outstanding Technical Achievement for its design of the Spotify At Mateo content creation facility in Los Angeles.
The 150,000 sq ft campus is located in the heart of LA’s historic Arts District and serves as Spotify’s flagship destination for their rapidly growing content creation division as well as a crucial artistic hub for LA’s podcast and music professionals. Designed as an immersive, all-in-one experience with every aspect of music and podcast production, postproduction, and performance under one roof, Spotify at Mateo required a wide variety of recording and production spaces to be utilized by both visiting artists and Spotify’s in-house team of creators and producers. Additionally, communal listening and performance spaces were also required. The overall campus was designed by LA design collective RIOS, with studio design, electroacoustics, A/V systems design, and production lighting by WSDG.
Building One includes a pair of full-featured recording studios, A and B, and a podcast recording studio. Studio A features a 48-channel 
console. Studio B is equipped with an Avid S4 24-fader Control Surface with Dolby Atmos mix capability. Both studios share a purpose-designed echo chamber. Studio A also features an innovative set of hinged panels to provide variable acoustic conditions within the spaces. WSDG also developed the acoustics for the onsite screening room, event hall, and three listening rooms in Building Two.
Building Four’s ‘Pod City’ is a honeycombed collection of spaces created specifically for podcasting. This includes Spotify’s Flagship Podcast Studio D, as well as 15 additional podcast studios, two production rooms, and three artist lounges. All of the rooms have multiple windows for access to natural light and greenery and were created by WSDG in a seamless systems design collaboration with SPL to assure flawless acoustics. SPL was also responsible for the podcast AV systems.
“Spotify at Mateo was a truly interdisciplinary undertaking, one that enabled us to draw on every aspect of our expertise in studio design, electroacoustics, A/V system design, and production lighting to bring this extraordinary project to life,” said WSDG COO Joshua Morris. “Working with the Spotify team we created a next-generation facility that offers the best of both worlds in analog and digital music and podcast production, at a scale that makes it the foremost such facility in the world. We’re extremely proud to see this project honored at the TEC Awards.”
