Earlier this yr, Common Music Canada moved into its swanky new workplace in Liberty Village. The office options 45,000 sq. ft of workplace house, together with three state-of-the-art recording studios, a multi-purpose efficiency venue and a espresso store the place international superstars like J. Cole, Shawn Mendes and Dave Grohl are recognized to get their jolt of caffeine earlier than heading into conferences or rehearsal. “We now have every day little Subject of Dream moments right here,” says Jeffrey Remedios, CEO of UMC. “You by no means know who you’re going to run into.”

Within the 2010s, UMC had its workplaces in a giant warehouse at Victoria Park and the 401. Not a lot was taking place within the space, and when artists drove on the market for conferences, whether or not they have been coming from the airport or from downtown accommodations, they ended up spending half their day in site visitors. So, in 2016, UMC began planning a downtown campus in a classy neighbourhood the place musicians could possibly be impressed. “We needed to create a spot the place artists and their companions may join and collaborate,” says Remedios.

Over the subsequent 4 years, with the assistance of native architects SuperKul, UMC made it occur, making a clear, light-filled workspace at 80 Atlantic Avenue. Gray carpeting and timber partitions abound, giving the house an natural really feel. The workplace was prepared in early 2020. Then Covid occurred and the UMC group packed up their laptops and labored from dwelling, leaving their new house mainly untouched. Now, the employees is again for a three-day hybrid schedule.

Right here’s a glance contained in the house.

On the bottom flooring, by the entrance entrance, UMC leases house to the espresso store Arvo, which additionally sells beer and wine. “They’re tremendous nerdy about their wine and low,” says Remedios. “They take it so significantly—like how UMC thinks about data.”

This multi-purpose occasion and efficiency house can be on the bottom flooring. With a most capability of 100 individuals, it’s sound-proof and kitted out with a full PA system. In September 2021, Shawn Mendes used the room to rehearse for the A lot Music Video Awards; in August, Geddy Lee and Dave Grohl have been in right here rehearsing for a Taylor Hawkins tribute present. Above the bar, repurposed low cost seats from the previous Massey Corridor operate as a sound buffer. Tragically Hip followers will acknowledge the neon lyrics from the track “Forward by a Century”—UMC received ahold of Gord Downie’s precise pocket book and had the signal rendered in his handwriting.

On the second flooring, there’s a personal state-of-the-art recording house referred to as 80A Studios. It has a separate entrance so artists can entry it with out distracting (or being distracted by) UMC staff elsewhere within the constructing. There’s a mirrored-glass set up above the entrance desk by Canadian multimedia artist Trevor Wheatley and his accomplice, Cosmo Dean. It depicts cash being flipped, reflecting the unpredictability of the artistic course of.

Welcome to Studio 1. When J. Cole was enjoying for the Scarborough Capturing Stars within the spring of 2022, he used this house to make music. It contains a large Strong State Logic soundboard and an Atmos surround-sound speaker system.

A gallery of previous photographs from Abbey Highway in London and Capital Data in Los Angeles—each Common Music studios—present legends like The Beatles, Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra throughout the recording course of.

There’s a separate-access co-working house for unbiased contractors, together with artist administration groups and label companions. It has a bunch of desks and personal rooms.

UMC commissioned artist Catherine Walker to create the gray carpeted partitions, that are discovered all through the workplaces. They supply a little bit of a sound buffer and make the house really feel natural, mushy and pure as an alternative of boring and stuffy.

The Massey boardroom, the place the large, vital conferences occur, appears to be like like one thing out of a film the place brokers and different bigwigs pound on the desk, advocating for his or her shoppers. All the boardrooms are named after well-known Canadian music venues (Massey Corridor, Maple Leaf Gardens, The Commodore Ballroom).

Right here’s the workspace for UMC staff. About 160 individuals work out of this workplace on a three-day hybrid work schedule (everybody is available in on Wednesdays). The desks are arrange departmentally, in “neighbourhoods,” for a mixture of separation and collaboration.

And that is Remedios’s workplace—a big house, with loads of pure gentle, to host vital conferences with a few of the greatest artists on this planet.