The University of Sydney, St Paul’s College, Graduate House

24 June

Written By Cathy Ellis

Category: Education
Location: Camperdown, NSW

St. Paul’s College, Graduate House is a prestigious Anglican college and student residential dwelling. It is especially for academics and distinguished postgraduate students.
In conjunction with construction company Buildcorp, Eclipse Sound and Vision was contracted to do a complete Audio-Visual fit out of 12 academic spaces. This project was a completely new building, built from the ground up.
Brands we were working with included Extron, NEC, Screen Technics, AMX, Yamaha, QSC, Shure, Mersive, Cisco, Icron, Dynalite, Vaddio, Audix, Dell, Lumens, Axis and WilliamsAV.
The systems ranged in complexity and size. One of the more complex rooms was Learning Space #3. This system was designed so that the 9x student collaboration tables around the room could clearly communicate to each other in the large room. To achieve this, 12x Audix ceiling mounted microphones were positioned throughout the space, and the Q-SYS audio DSP was custom programmed to provide a varied level of voice lift, depending on how far away the participants were from the microphone that was picking up their speech. The participant’s local loudspeaker would not provide voice lift to their area, but the loudspeakers in more distant areas provided a greater amount of voice lift. Thus a single participant at any point in the room, could be heard clearly at any other point in the room, without the need for a handheld radio microphone.
This was quite an intricate and complex setup, considering how many occupants were being picked up in varied locations. However, once completed, this worked very well, and provided the space with an intuitive solution for seamless collaboration from even the furthest points across the room.
The lecturer had the option of a fixed Shure gooseneck microphone, or a lapel-worn radio microphone for more mobility. This system also included Q-SYS 12x72 PTZ camera, Q-SYS Core DSP, dual projection NEC projectors and motorised Screen Technics screens. The lectern housed the Audio-Visual rack, along with the AMX control system with a 7-inch touch panel, QSC amplification and speakers, and Dynalite lighting control. The room also featured a WilliamsAV IR transmitter, a networked monitoring IP camera, and a Lumens document camera.
·       1 x 42P Advanced Laboratory
·       2 x Learning studios (60P)
·       5 x Learning Space (42P – 60P)
·       1 x Seminar room (18P)
·       1 x Zoom meeting room
·       2 x BYOD pod spaces