When Twitch needed to take its operations bi-coastal, adding a second hub in New York City, they contacted Diversified to help deliver a unified infrastructure to create an exceptional communication and collaboration experience. Originally founded in 2011, the livestreaming service was acquired by Amazon in 2014. Given Diversified’s history with both Amazon and Twitch, expanding the partnership with this new project was a natural progression.
Located on Manhattan’s Park Avenue, the new Twitch HQ 2.0 spans two floors. The 19th floor hosts four huddle rooms, two standard conference rooms and the All-Hands event space. The 20th floor is home to seven additional huddle spaces, three conference rooms as well as the executive board room. “The AV is the first thing you see,” continued noted Greg Deye, Twitch’s real estate project manager. “Twitch streaming on the monitors in the lobby, and as you get up to floors 19 and 20, you’re immersed into the Twitch culture.” The goal was to not only make the technology invisible, but to completely integrate it into the environment, both in appearance and functionality.
The project involved extensive collaboration between Twitch, Diversified and a few key manufacturers who offer a broad range of solutions including AV-over-IP infrastructure, remote system management and uniform interfaces for users. The team worked closely with Twitch to deliver multiple iterations of the AV design to encompass recent evolutions in AV and IT technology to meet their goals. This included more user-friendly interfaces and enabling live, “white glove” remote support across all corporate locations.
Working on the project during the pandemic posed challenges but didn’t impede progress with the general contractor coordinating back to the team on issues via live video walk-throughs of the facility. The entire team was eventually allowed on-site for a week of commissioning, testing and provisioning before the facility went live. Today, Twitch’s HQ 2.0 provides end-users with a uniform and simplified user experience and the collaboration services team with the flexibility and data to better understand, connect and serve their growing business.
