University Adds Audiovisual Experiences to $180 Million New Building Expansion

The University of Albany’s new $180 million building expansion has been called a state-of-the-art epicenter for research and innovation. The SUNY campus has added the 246,000 square foot facility, called ETEC (Emerging Technology and Entrepreneurship Complex), for the purpose of solving some of the biggest problems our society faces today, including climate change, extreme weather events, and national security challenges.

We were very excited to be a part of the university’s vital contribution to the state, national, and global community. From environmental responsibility to technological innovations, SUNY Albany anticipates game-changing results from this state-of-the-art new facility.

The Challenge

Throughout the building, there was a great need for state-of-the-art audiovisual and integrated networking design and installations. On the first floor, the UAlbany Innovation Center serves as an incubator for a variety of emerging technology companies which includes several conference rooms and collaboration spaces where entrepreneurs will communicate their visions for the future to stakeholders, investors, and team members. The College of Engineering and Applied Sciences (CEAS) also includes several classrooms and huddle spaces where engineering students and professors can visualize engineering problems and solutions.

Our design team expertly navigated the challenges of working with 6 state entities, each with a variety of security clearances and project management schedules and requirements while providing design and engineering consulting services.

Our Solutions

We equipped a dozen large classrooms, lecture halls, and project rooms with multiple video projectors and displays, cameras, blu-ray players, audio systems including ceiling-mounted loudspeakers, RF assistive listening systems, and instructor podiums with Gooseneck microphones. The classrooms also included wireless microphones, video matrix switching systems, Pan Tilt Zoom video cameras, Lecture Capture recording, network video streaming, and control AV Control systems with interface to dimming system AV Touch Panel controls for the audiovisual system, located at instructor podiums. We also added 2 IP cameras which allow a view of activities in the room to be streamed across the enterprise network for remote viewing.

In the Atrium, we built a 3x3 Video wall with 46” “Thin-Mullion” displays and multiple floor box locations to serve different configurations of the room. We also added to this space a document camera, digitally steerable “Line array” loudspeakers, RF Assistive listening system, wired and wireless microphones, an audio mixing console (small format, digital), a video matrix switcher, a video wall controller, and AV Control system.

The Science Sphere required a unique design solution which consists of a spherical video projection system and associated control and signal processing equipment. Four High brightness video projectors were used to project an image onto a spherical display surface. The system requires edge blending/image warping software called NOAA: Science on a Sphere.

We designed audivisual solutions for the state-of-the-art software development and data/visual analytics innovation facility as well which included a large display with document camera, an integrated 7x4 video switching system with control and audio mixing capabilities, and an “HDbaseT” video signal distribution equipment with network connected wireless screen sharing and handheld controls.

In collaboration with the Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services, University of Albany installed the NYS Early Warning Weather Detection System on its campus. The New York State Mesonet Operations Center is at the center of this facility and required several state-of-the-art audiovisual installations and design/builds. Here we designed and installed two 3x3 video walls, 2 x 86” 4K video monitors, ceiling mounted loudspeakers, wired and wireless microphones, and video matrix switcher video wall controller “HDbaseT” Video signal distribution equipment.

We installed two Interactive displays on movable stands in the facility’s new Makerspace, which is a 4,200-square-foot learning space dedicated to collaboration and creativity through problem solving, containing a variety of materials with which students can tinker, discover, and create.

The new building also contains collaboration spaces, team rooms, multi-purpose meeting rooms, teaching spaces, and conference rooms where we designed and installed flat panel displays, wireless screen sharing, control wall mounted push button controls, AV touch panels, ceiling mounted video projectors, ceiling mounted loudspeakers, RF assistive listening systems, audio mixing consoles, lecture capture recording, software based video teleconferencing, and AV control systems with interface to dimming system AV Touch Panels.

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