Arcitectural Study Model for S/T Video
S/T was a video duplicating company in the early days of the cassette rental industry. I worked there from 1978. The production center was a single room ringed with racks of VCRs, with a two central banks of broadcast videotape machines feeding them, turning out roughly 500 copies of a movie (recorded in real time).

During a remodeling, I was asked to model the control room in scale, and help work out a new arrangement of the equipment. Shown here is the "Star Trek bridge" motif requested by the head of engineering. A central circular platform controls the broadcast machines.

Below: The outer walls were made from wood, covered with brick-printed paper. All the equipment was made from folded card stock, glued together via tabs, and colored with Pantone markers.

Below, cable troughs for the control runs are added. Cabling would have risen into the suspended ceiling via the central trunk. The figure is a 1/48 plastic soldier modified to look like the guy who actually worked there at the time.

Below are the broadcast machines, modeled in card stock. I took measurements directly from the real machines, and duplicated them as best I could. I also did one of our wheeled carts with a selection of 2" master videotapes.

In the end, the company stayed with its horseshoe-shaped central arrangement of two rows of machines with a single control panel bridging one end. Eventually the company went the way of the dodo.