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UEA NEW SCIENCE BUILDING

AVoIP Case Study

Audio Visual engineering to support “cross-pollination of ideas” in STEM teaching.

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AV Integration for Flexible Teaching Spaces


“We don’t have separate biology and chemistry labs”

Audio Visual engineering for teaching spaces purpose-built to encourage inter-disciplinary collaboration between students.

The New Science Building at the University of East Anglia (UEA) is a £30 million inter-disciplinary facility for the sciences, including Environmental Sciences, Computing, Biology, Physics, Engineering and Chemistry and Pharmacy.

Audio Visual Integration - UEA Flexible Divisible Lecture Theatre

“The idea is that they are interchangeable”.

“You can have mixed faculties and swap around between subjects”.

– Neil Wilson, Senior Estates Project Manager


Emphasis on ‘inter’-disciplinary

The building was designed with an objective – encourage “cross-pollination of ideas” i.e. provide spaces to promote collaboration between students, researchers, and staff across disciplines.

AV infrastructure, therefore, was designed and built to realise the objective:

  • Accommodate larger student groups
  • Concurrent split-use of laboratories
  • Divisible classrooms
  • Common public spaces
  • Avenues for students across the disciplines to interact, share and collaborate with each other.

Laboratory spaces can function as one large space to accommodate larger groups comprised of students across the disciplines.

For smaller groups, the teacher base location allows multiple options on the touch control panel to switch between the pre-programmed ‘classroom modes’.

Teaching spaces include classrooms, seminar spaces, laboratories, public areas, cafeteria, digital signage and LED installations.

Standardised Classrooms

Since 2012, Snelling Business Systems have partnered with UEA on campus-wide standardisation for AV deployment into classrooms.

Standardised classrooms include single-screen Panasonic projection supported by QSC speakers, room-specific Shure MXW wireless microphones and voice reinforcement for larger groups.

In addition, classrooms are equipped with Extron touch control, Wolfvision visualiser, Mersive Solstice Pod Wireless presentation/collaboration, Ampetronic hearing loop and Panasonic PTZ cameras for lecture capture. Please download our case study for the full specifications.

Divisible Classrooms

The rooms can be operated as one large seminar space, or split into two smaller classrooms operable independently (central partition).

The end-user can select the pre-programmed setting from either of the two control panels to ‘join’ the rooms, which enables:

  • Audio amplification (microphones and content) through both rooms from either lectern position.
  • Audio (microphones and audio content) through the induction loop.

The provision also exists for height-adjustable, trolley-mounted (Teammate Varilite) Panasonic 75” presentation displays to be connected at the divider location during single-use of the space.

Split-use Laboratories

Ten laboratory facilities exist with AV infrastructure designed to accommodate inter-disciplinary student groups in single or concurrent teaching sessions.

  • Single-use (‘Join’ Mode) – The lab is used as a single teaching space.
    The end-user selects the teaching mode from the control panel at either one of two teacher-base locations in the lab. Presentation content can be displayed across all screens in the lab with audio (microphones and audio content) delivered throughout the entire lab, as well as through the induction loop.
  • Split-Use (‘Split’ Mode) – The lab is physically divided into two zones – North and South zone. Two teacher base locations are equipped to deliver two concurrent teaching sessions. When two concurrent sessions are in place, lecturer presentation content is restricted to student screens in the relevant zone. Audio transmission is also split between the two zones to meet the needs of two concurrent sessions.
  • Multi-Lab Join (‘Multi-Lab’ Mode) – full use of both BIO Lab 1 and BIO Lab 2. Audio and presentation content from the teacher base locations can be delivered to other labs on all floors, if and when required (For example, during University Open Days). For security, external broadcasts settings are restricted (and password-protected) to select users with IT clearance to prevent an accidental override of other teaching sessions.

Additional large-format display, BYOD and audio installations are also available at smaller labs such s the ‘Tissue Culture’ and ‘Instrumentation’ labs.

Interesting? Download our casebook below for the full scheme.

Atrium LED wall

The LED wall façade at the atrium is comprised of three installations, which collectively play relevant content for the building’s audience.
The main LED wall is a Full HD 3x X 2m Full HD 1.58 mm pitch installation, supported by two LED installations on each side (1220 x 1720 and 1220 x 1400).

Each LED display is equipped with:

  • ZeeVee Zyper4k decoder
  • Cabletime Signage player
  • Novastar display controller
  • QSC column speakers on both sides of the main display

UK’s Largest 

The AV infrastructure is the UK’s largest ZeeVee ZyperUHD AVoIP deployment in higher education and the UK’s first for integration with Extron.


 

“Snelling Business Systems worked closely with us throughout the entire design process to give us a highly advanced AV system that fully supports our vision and requirements of students and staff at our New Science Building”.

 

“They worked closely with me to help translate the end-user requirements into a technological solution”.

 

“Their hands-on approach and personalised service meant they could easily align the AV system with the University’s key principles, in turn bringing our vision and this inspirational building to life”.

 

– Matt North, Learning Spaces Technology Manager, University of East Anglia

 


 

Download Casebook

Piqued your curiosity?

Download our casebook for the full project specifications.

Have a question or two? Get in touch with us.

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Cover Page Snelling Case Study Download - UEA New Science Building