TAQA Bratani Conference Suite
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TAQA Bratani is an exploration and production company working in the oil fields of the United Kingdom Continental Shelf. It has expanded its operations to three new buildings in the Arnhall Business Park just outside Aberdeen, Scotland, all of which have required new AV facilities. Electrosonic was the systems integrator for much of this work, supplying a digital signage system and fitting out 20 meeting rooms, an emergency control room, a video conferencing suite and a complete conference suite.
The challenge for Electrosonic was to allow the 150-seat conference suite to be used for up to six independent boardrooms when necessary, using a system of movable soundproof partitions. The space presented some interesting technical obstacles. Since the building was not purposely built to be used in this manner, all equipment had to fit in the existing space. An early decision was made to only provide the largest space, known as Gleneagles, with full control facilities, which also meant this space would act as the master control when rooms were combined. Gleneagles is equipped with an AMX wireless touch panel that can control the space, and also set up the linked spaces. All the other spaces have relatively simple facilities for control.
The control panel displays six spaces representing the partitioned rooms, and allows the facility to “join” rooms together for shared lighting and audio control by simply selecting the “join” function and touching the rooms that are to be joined. Both the Gleneagles room and the second largest Glenroyal room are fitted with ceiling mounted NEC WXGA projectors and motorised ceiling mounted screens. The projectors’ light output is quite sufficient despite the considerable amount of daylight that enters the rooms.
Mobile video conferencing trolleys, based on Lifesize equipment, are located throughout the six spaces. The smaller rooms are served by trolley mounted NEC 46 inch LCD displays, and the Gleneagles room is served by a NEC 52 inch LCD display that can also be used in any room if necessary. When used in the larger rooms, the 52 inch LCD can be connected to the room audio microphone system and the projector(s). The audio system is based on mixing and routing signals from sources, such as conference microphones and wireless lapel or handheld microphones, to ceiling loudspeakers fed by amplifiers.
The central equipment (primarily audio equipment and the AMX controller) is housed in a compact mobile rack sited in the Gleneagles room. The AV and control system is proving effective in use, aided particularly by the intuitive design and programming of the control panel. Electrosonic’s Edinburgh office was responsible for the main installation and continues to provide support service.
