Centre Court on Camera: Designing BBC Sport's Wimbledon
Patrick Larsen's broadcast environment for BBC Sport's Wimbledon coverage, 2017–2019 — designed to honour one of sport's most tradition-bound institutions and function as a modern television studio.
BBC Sport's Wimbledon broadcast environment (2017–2019). Production design by Patrick Larsen.
Some broadcasts are part of the event. The BBC's Wimbledon coverage is one of them. From 2017 through 2019 I designed it.
Two briefs at once
Wimbledon is its own thing. The set has to feel like the place — the greens, the quiet, the not-trying-too-hard — and still work as a television studio. Frame the presenters. Hold up under long days of changing daylight. Read clean on camera. None of that is about making a statement. Most of it is restraint.
BBC Sport's Wimbledon studio (2017–2019) — the championship desk staged against The Championships' "90 Years" branding and a window onto the grounds. Production design by Patrick Larsen.
What broadcast taught me
Wimbledon sits inside a run of broadcast work I did before the ceremonies — CTV Vancouver 2010, BBC Rio 2016, Education Nation. Television is where I learned to get out of the way. Make the set disappear so the moment lands. I still design that way on a stadium floor.
CTV's Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics broadcast studio — a cedar-clad set overlooking Burrard Inlet at Canada Place. BDA Gold winner. Production design by Patrick Larsen.BBC Sport's Rio 2016 Olympic broadcast set — a curved sofa and circular desk framed by the Olympic rings and a window onto Copacabana Beach. Production design by Patrick Larsen.NBC News' Education Nation at Rockefeller Center (2011) — the Emmy-winning in-the-round broadcast environment. Production design by Patrick Larsen.
