Closing up an open studio

[xfrancox]

So I work in the public broadcast station for Manhattan and I've been approached to do audio after working in the tape library for a while (my break! ). One of the things they have asked about is what they should buy to make things sound better. While some of the things I have in mind would be more long term goals an immediate thing I want to work on is our open studio. It's basically a very large studio that is open to the rest of the facilites. It's basically an audio nightmare. You can hear doors opening, people talking, etc. Obviously I can't just build walls but I was thinking of possibly getting some baffles of sorts to kind of close up the space a bit. I took a crappy picture to show what I'm talking about. On either side of the stairs opens up to the studio. The hallway leading to this is very reflective and to the left there is a kitchen, haha. So what sort of advice do you guys have? I don't mind bringing in a little DIY to this project either.