Our brief for the Spring Lane Building’s learning technology (audio visual)

The working group has spent some time discussing the type of technology and supporting provision that should be within each space. In an earlier article I covered the lecture theatre but by far the largest provision of technology will be within the seminar rooms: 26 of them in total, representing 520 seats’ worth of space.

Big ideas: the seminar rooms will feature large 'think walls', ensuring there is plenty of board space for group work

Taking on board earlier feedback from academic members of the group, the brief included:

• an integrated workstation that should be part of the furniture provision in the room (ie staff and students in rooms will be in a circle together)
• ample (and maximum) writing board surface at the front of the room, able to operate with the (requested 2.5mtr) screen in the middle
• continuous ‘think walls’ (whiteboards) at the rear of the rooms, allowing group work to take place with lots of board space to use
• future provision for, and integration with, the Lecture Recording (Replay) service as standard
• high-quality hearing loops in the ground and top floors
• more experimental technology within the three seminar rooms above the lecture theatre
• high-quality digital signage around the building, including a welcome/video wall for both University messaging and student use
• suitably ‘bright’ projectors that are fully legible and compliant to recommended viewing standards in the room (size/dimension and distance from front to back of the room)

The AV provision should also be:

• secure by design
• high quality and durable 
• low energy usage (incorporating occupancy detection, etc)

This tender has now concluded and Universal AV were successful in their bid. Steve Jackson (Learning Spaces Projects Manager) and colleagues are now actively engaging with UAV and the builders of the Spring Lane Building, to make sure everything is where it needs to be for successful ‘1st fix’ to commence soon (that’s the cabling, brackets and other bits that go in before the actual hardware).

I’m sure Steve will provide you with more technical detail soon.

All the best,

Matt