Continuity Update for July 25

Staff-only entrance on the north side of the building. I have Russia on the brain, but this truly reminds me traditional Russian peasant architecture. (That's a good thing.)

Ahoy! A few quick updates for you:

Around the kitchen
Awesome new shelves have increased our storage capacity and raised up one of the microwaves to a comfortable height. And, a new toaster oven and third coffee urn for decaf are in action. Plus -- fun, brightly colored dishes! The kitchen is feeling pretty good as I write this on a sunny Friday afternoon.

Behind the yellow curtain
Thanks for your patience with the sealed off Green Room. Here's a glimpse of the work going on there:

This picture shows a long bank of storage drawers that will be installed outside the entrance to Master & Talk. There is a similar bank of drawers that will go on the other side of the doors too. So much storage!!!  Work continues in the Green Room through the end of July.

Classical's home turf
The one, true home of VPR Classical (also known as Studio B) has been lightly renovated and cleaned of construction dust. It's now back in the hands of our engineering team. TOE is already working on building out the Classical Studio in anticipation of moving back in.

Moving back in?
Yep, that's going to happen. The Continuity group has been gaming out some scenarios for moving us back into the renovated building. This is a serious Jenga puzzle of logistics for a few reasons:

• we are currently using the furniture that has to be moved, which means some groups of people need to either move temporarily before their final move, or else go offline completely for a couple of days
• some of the teams that are moving are managing several big, big projects around the time when they will be relocated

We're trying to make a plan that causes the least disruption. We started with 3 possible scenarios, increased it to 5, and -- after a thorough discussion of pros and cons this week -- we have narrowed it to 2 good options for getting everyone moved into their new homes. The managers of the affected teams are going to choose and fine-tune the final plan for how this goes.

Photos!
This week's photo theme is heavy metal. The cool weathered steel we see around the new building is being installed on some walls in the historic building. Plus, some of the support beams and walls have been fitted with wood planks and barn board. There is still plenty of electrical and construction work going on, but you can already see the design elements coming together amidst the wiring and equipment.

Enjoy!

Metal work going up in the hallway above the equipment cabinets outside of VPR Classical.

Beams and support columns in the music library are now wrapped with wood.

Barn board going up in the future mailroom, where the old kitchen used to be.

New paint in the former newsroom; these windows look into the old entrance lobby.