Your Housing New HQ – Audio Visual Installation
Your Housing Group have a combined stock of over 34,000 properties and an annual turnover of £150 million per year.
When they moved in to their new headquarters on the Birchwood Science Park, Warrington they turned to Technical Display Systems to advise on and implement there audio visual requirements.
After a number of client meetings, where suggested specifications were proposed to meet their requirements, Technical Display Systems were appointed to work with the main contractor to ensure their expectations were met on time and on budget.
The Brief
The requirements of Your Housing Group (YHG) were far reaching as the interior design of the new HQ was based on an open plan approach with space that could be used both for formal meetings and impromptu huddle/collaboration sessions to discuss work that required immediate attention.
A suite of training rooms was required that allowed flexible formats of space to be used to cover all possible meeting sizes and presentation styles.
Formal meeting spaces needed the facility to be able to present information and presentations to high level personnel as well as the capability of being able to include off site input via both video and audio conferencing.
Mobile and static interactive meetings also needed to be accommodated.
Given the number of meeting spaces involved, a room booking system was essential to best utilise the facilities.
Employee welfare was high on the agenda so in the restaurant area audio replay systems along with a large format display to allow news and gaming to be accessed were requested.
A digital signage system was also needed to impart information to staff.

Our Approach
Training Suite.
The total space can be split in to three individual rooms but with the use of an AMX control system with wall mounted touchscreens the space can be divided in to any combination required.
Each space has a ceiling mounted LCD projector with its own electrically operated projection screen, so the spaces can be used in isolation but when joined, via their matrix switcher, duplicated images can be presented.
This facility is complemented with ceiling mounted speakers to provide audio.
A Sympodium interactive screen is used across the three spaces to allow interactivity if required.
Formal Presentation Rooms
There are a number of rooms spread across the three floors of the building and these are serviced by full HD resolution commercial monitors ranging from 55” to 75” in size.
In some spaces they are used for presentation from PC only, but in others they incorporate Vaddio Huddlestations, Easytalk microphone pods, and Logitech CC3000e cameras for delivery of Video/ Audio conferencing.
To allow the maximum flexibility of connectivity Easymeeting virtual meeting rooms are available to cope with all eventualities.
Interactive Displays
The need for both fixed and mobile interactive presentations was provided by the use of the Hitachi Starboard and Hitachi 65” interactive screen. The starboard was fed by a short throw Hitachi LCD projector whilst the 65” screen was mounted on a RA Technology electrically operated height adjustable mobile stand, which also allows the screen to be used in a table top position to allow better collaboration for a number of users when needed.
This mobile unit also has a wireless connectivity facility to further enhance its flexibility.
Room Booking
The meeting, training rooms and a number of huddle areas are able to be booked by Evoko panels mounted adjacent to their entrance. They can also be booked through a central facility on their IT network.
Digital Signage
The digital signage facility is provided by the use of Samsung MagicInfo. The content is produced in house and can be instantly amended as required.


Training
Training on the use of interactive software and MagicInfo content creation was provided at handover in a formal classroom training environment.
The Result
As can be seen from the accompanying images the final solution is a very impressive installation as a result of both innovative interior designs coupled with a co-ordinated and sympathetic use of leading edge audio visual technology.
The equipment is easy to use, and as a result is in frequent demand by the Your Housing Group staff.
