You’d expect that working with one of the biggest companies in the world would mean a lack of control and a lot of polite nods as the client suggests ideas about how it wants its new A/V system to look.

That was quite the contrary for VideoSonic Systems, though, when the company was chosen to create a multi-purpose room for the asset management division of a Connecticut-based worldwide corporation that’s routinely at the top of the Fortune 500. The job earned the New York-based integrator the CI Solutions Award for corporate work.

Inside The Job

Before VideoSonic completed the job in January, the Fortune 500 company was forced to rent offsite ballroom space for its 200-plus employees to attend an annual company-wide town hall meeting. In addition to the fees associated with renting that space, the company also had to hire a production company and provide for transportation and food for the attendees. Rather than fork out the dough every year for a temporary solution, the company hired VideoSonic to create a permanent solution.

Best of all, in the eyes of VideoSonic founder, president and CEO Glenn Polly, was that the company asked for a design-build solution.

Among the equipment were 6 x F32 Projection Design pearl-white projectors in the multi-purpose room, training room and CEO’s office.

“Having the client’s complete trust like we did puts us in a great position,” he says.

“We can spend their money better than they can, and it’s always nice when you have a client who understands that and trusts you to do that.”

The client wanted to be able to stream an HD simulcast of the event throughout the building and globally over its network to give employees access to its intellectual capital. The client stipulated that the A/V gear had to be installed in portable roll-top rack cabinets, allowing pieces to be connected to multiple locations, and stored when not used. Because the system would mostly be operated by in-house staff, the system includes the ability to recall presets of common setup configurations.

The divisible multipurpose room — which is actually three 75-foot rooms that are easily reconfigurable — needed to be easily divided and combined to facilitate different audience sizes for auditorium seating or training configurations using tables stored when not used.

A sound-proof retractable partition was installed, dividing the length of the room into thirds. It was necessary for the MPR to be flexible so it could be configured with the tables in classroom-type rows, a horseshoe, or rectangles of various sizes. Source routing and audio control is transparent to the user; a sensor is activated when the partition is opened, automatically combining into single large room.

In addition to Town Hall meetings, the room also needed presentation/conferencing support and the ability to function as large conference rooms and training rooms. Meetings could be impromptu work sessions or scheduled in advance.

Page 1 of 2
1 2 Next »

View the 17 photos attached to this entry

             

View photos

About the author

D. Craig MacCormack

Craig MacCormack is a veteran journalist with more than 15 years experience covering local and national news and sports as well as architecture and engineering. He joined Commercial Integrator in January 2011. Follow him on Twitter: @CraigMacCormack.

View all posts by D. Craig MacCormack