Making the world a better place to work.

The most important principle in designing any environment is making the people who work in it feel at ease, insist Martin Kapell and Michael Kostow, principles of downtown architecture firm Kappell and Kostow. That is why the team, which often works on such techheavy projects as video studios

"We like working with creative companies," Kostow points out. "We do lots of different projects, like schools and theaters and residential buildings, but for the past seven years or so we focused on the high-tech."

"I think what makes us different is the way we approach each project," Kapell adds. "We feel that design needs to be responsive to the internal culture of a company. And one of the aspects of building tech facilities is anticipating changes in both the equipment itself and what people's preferences are."

This video library created for the advertising firm of M & G Saatchi, for example. The wooden shelves hide rows and rows of videotapes, with the monitors strategically positioned within the furniture piece to make them seem less conspicuous. 'It's very much like a room in a private home,' Kapell points out with enthusiam. 'It even includes a fireplace, to make the space look more inviting. The technology was incorporated into the whole design as a decoration, not a centerpiece.'

The challenge was greater at HBO Studio Productions, below and right, where technology is a n integral part of daily life. There, to make the editing process less stressful, Kapell and Kostow simplified it. A digitzing room, containing all the back-up files and necessary equipment, was positioned in the center of a circle of eight editing rooms. This way, before the editors set out to work on a particular show, all of their editing material is placed in the hardware in their room, giving them an opportunity to work without distractions. Kostow explained, 'When people are in this environment, they are in a very comfortable space. They are not surrounded by technology.'

A slightly different task was presented to the team at Nickelodeon's digital animation facility. The carton editors have to work in the dark, but they requested a 'bright and airy' environment in their discussions with Kapell and Kostow. The lighting here was a big issue.' The solution? Translucent office partitions. The work stations were surrounded by offices with windows and the partitions were installed to allow just the right amount of natural light to seep through. 'What this project is about is how you marry the human side with the technical side,' Kapell said.

Kapell and Kostow tried to achieve a similar effect as the Saatchi space for the Bozell conference room in New York City. The room offers all of the perks of modern-day communication technology, but the wiring is undetectable, being skillfully hidden behind the walls. As Kostow explains. We worked the equipment into the composition - arrange the speakers as pictures on the walls and make the microphones a part of the table.'

Finally, there is the audio-editing studio that the firm designed for Broadway Video Productions. In addition to eliminating the sense of claustrophobia that exists in most spaces without windows, the architects had to make sure that no glard from the lighting and no outside could interfere with the editors work. 'The sight line here is very important, so the producer's desk was actually raised up to et him see the screen explain kapell.