July 19, 2010
Unique AIA Meeting Space Offers Practical Ideas For Facility Planners
KANSAS CITY, MO—When the American
Institute of Architects chapter
in Kansas City moved its offices last
year, they chose a renovated 1907
structure in the Crossroads District,
a former downtown industrial area
now home to art galleries, shops,
and restaurants. Helix Architecture
and Design of Kansas City created
striking interiors for the space, and
Conference Technologies, Inc. (CTI)
contributed an innovative AV system.
|
|
The 2,000-square-foot first-floor meeting room features Extron’s new TLP 700MV TouchLink
control system.
| |
The centerpiece of the space is a
2,000-square-foot first-floor meeting
room, with windows on two sides
looking out on the neighborhood.
AIA Kansas City uses the new space
for a large number of meetings and
events, both for members and others
in the design community. The room
can comfortably hold 60 people
classroom style, 150 theater style,
and even more for receptions. The
chapter also plans to rent the space to
other organizations and companies
in the area. “We’re in a really great
location in Kansas City, a kind of a
hip, happening area of downtown,”
Tiffany Shepherd, deputy director of
the chapter, explained. “There are a
lot of evening events, where galleries
open up their doors to the public, and
a lot of need for meeting space.”
According to Steve Martin, who
was in charge of the project for CTI,
one of the main challenges in designing
an AV system for this room was
its use as a rental space. “Most of
the people who do presentations here
will use the AV system infrequently
or only once, so the controls had to
be extremely intuitive.”
That was one of the reasons Martin
recommended using Extron’s new
touchpanel-based control system—
and in fact, this was one of the first
rooms in the nation to have the new
TLP 700MV TouchLink color panel
installed.
“It’s really simple to use,” Martin
said. Extron includes a seven-inch
touchscreen in the panel plus 10 backlit
buttons and even a master volume
control knob to put everything at a
user’s fingertips. They also set up a
simplified programming scheme,
making it affordable for customers
who might not otherwise be able to
budget for a touchpanel.
“I think this is my favorite part of
the room,” Shepherd said. “It makes
it really easy not only for us to use the
AV system but for us to show other
people how to use it.”
Another challenge was the sheer
variety of meetings that would be
held in the new room. Jeffrey Schutzler,
the project leader at Helix
Architecture, included lightweight,
motorized room dividing curtains
from MechoShade Systems to reconfigure
the room for different types
and sizes of meetings. “This is a big
space,” noted Shepherd, “but if we’re
having a small meeting, we can drop
one of these shades to make the meeting
feel a little more intimate.” Schutzler
put one shade about one-third of
the way back from the front of the
room, another about two-thirds of
the way back, and then used the same
material across all of the windows.
So a presenter can use the Mecho-
Shade fabric to darken the room and
to resize it, fitting it not only to the
lighting conditions but to the size of
the audience.
The sound system CTI designed
includes an Extron DMP 64 Digital
Matrix Processor—a 6x4 audio
matrix switcher with digital signal
processor built in—and eight Extron
SI 26CT two-way ceiling speakers.
The sound system ties into the
curtaining system: press a button to
lower one of the MechoShade dividers
and it automatically activates only
those speakers appropriate for the
space being used.
“The combination of the Extron
DSP and speakers sounds really nice
for voice and music,” Martin said,
“and it made it very easy for us to
control four wireless microphones
from the touchpanel.”
A 4,000-lumen NEC NP3250W
projector provides bright, high definition
images on a 130-inch diagonal
Da-Lite Cinema Contour screen.
Sources for the system include a builtin
PC, three laptop inputs, a DVD/
VCR combo, the Shure SLX wireless
microphones, and an iPod dock.
|