The Biodesign Institute's display wall, which is visible from the exterior of the building, is comprised of 18 Clarity Visual Systems 46-inch Baycat X LCD panels mounted in a two-by-nine configuration.
CHALLENGE: On a set budget, spread display systems — including a large videowall —throughout the open spaces of an Arizona research facility.
SOLUTION: Use an array of LCD flat-panel displays in lieu of a single, large LED board for the videowall, and equip all display points with the necessary converters to use UTP wire instead of more expensive high-resolution coaxial cable.
GARNERING MORE state building funds than any other Arizona academic research facility ever has, the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University in Tempe was created to synergize within one globally connected lab the innovations of specialized bio-science fields like molecular biophysics, evolutionary genomics, and bio-optical nanotechnology.
Ultimately, the institute's master plan will call for the construction of four interconnected buildings comprising 800,000 square feet at a cost of nearly $350 million. The second phase of the project was completed in January, with the opening of the 175,000-foot, rectangular-shaped “Building B,” built with $78.5 million in state research infrastructure funding. (Funds are still pending for the final two phases of the project.) The new “B” wing acts as the main entrance to the institute, housing a lobby, several conference rooms, and a 90-seat presentation theater. Building B is connected via a three-story atrium to the similarly shaped, 172,000-square-foot “Building A,” a space opened in December of 2004 that houses more than 330 researchers from around the world.
In February, Chandler, AZ-based systems integrator Technology Providers Inc. (TPI) completed installation of the first part of a $5 million, five-phase AV systems bid. This first phase, valued at $1.5 million, called for the integration of AV technology inside Building B's meeting rooms and public spaces.
A late start
According to Kimberly Ovitt, marketing and communications director for the Biodesign Institute, the center's key AV design objectives included teleconferencing capabilities in its auditorium and conference rooms, as well as dual-screen projection wherewithal so that onscreen presentations could occur simultaneously with teleconferencing events. Also, because seating was limited in the auditorium, the institute wanted the ability to broadcast presentations in spaces such as the lobby area and the atrium.
“A top-notch research institute needs to collaborate with researchers in other nations, so we needed more than a self-contained AV system,” Ovitt explains. “And since our auditorium has only 90 seats, we needed the ability to overflow whatever was going on so that the whole facility would become one large conference room.”
Aesthetics were also important — Dr. George Poste, director of the institute, wanted the AV system to reflect the center's forward-thinking bent. “His vision was to project a very next-generation environment,” says Glenn Peacock, Phoenix-based senior consultant for The Sextant Group, the Pittsburgh-headquartered firm that oversaw design of Building B's AV systems.
In fact, it was Poste's vision — that of a “virtual lab” connected to other research facilities all over the world — that drove the entire AV systems design. Unfortunately for both Sextant and TPI, however, Poste wasn't hired on as director until construction of Building B was nearly completed.
“When the facility was built, there really wasn't any provision for sophisticated AV systems,” Ovitt explains. “That meant that some situations weren't ideal because they weren't constructed with the AV in mind.”
Starting the AV installation in December, TPI engineers had 90 days to get everything installed and running — a task rendered more difficult by the fact that they had little collaboration with the installers of subordinate building systems like lighting control. “We basically had to figure that stuff out on our own,” says Jim Pedersen, project manager for the company.
And while the building's original blueprint didn't include AV provisions, neither did its budget.
“We actually had to go and secure a new budget for the AV,” Ovitt says. “And it had to be reasonable, because we're a public institution.”
“Thus, the major challenge of this project was to value engineer it back to something that was more in line with the funding that was available,” Peacock explains. “The goal was to make it cost-effective, but also have the shine and appeal of an expensive project.”
Get the LED out
The display wall in the lobby area provides the best example of how both Sextant and TPI overcame systems design and installation challenges.
According to Peacock, in early design meetings with institute officials, Poste indicated the need for a large-screen display in the lobby area, which would serve as a medium to broadcast institute presentations, as well as a digital signage piece to display news about the institute. Poste also wanted the display to be a showpiece that “would take the identity of the building graphically out onto the road,” he says.
“He described what he'd seen at the Smithsonian Institution (in Washington, D.C.), where myriad TVs were tuned to myriad channels, and how that effect served the function of the lobby,” Peacock explains.
Sextant's early design plans called for the use of LED technology. However, because lobby visitors would be standing right next to the display, its diodes would have to be smaller than 3 millimeters to meet the proper resolution specs. “That sort of pushed us into a higher class of LED product,” says Peacock, noting that such an LED display — at more than 20 feet wide by 7 feet high — would cost at least $2.4 million. “We soon realized that (LED) had to go away and be replaced by something more cost effective.”
The Biodesign Institute's three-story atrium area is lined with 24 Panasonic 50-inch TH-50PHD8UK plasma monitors, all ceiling hung in back-to-back pairs.
A configuration of plasma displays was considered as an alternative, but the heat emissions of the individual monitors would have been uncomfortable for lobby patrons standing nearby, Peacock says. Various rear-projection technologies were also evaluated, but their images looked washed out amid the sunlight of the glass-enclosed lobby area.
Ultimately, Sextant decided to build a display wall out of 18 Clarity Visual Systems 46-inch Baycat X LCD panels, mounted in a two-by-nine configuration. Their framed edges meant that the wall would be superimposed with a grid-like matrix. However, their brightness met the project's performance guidelines. And purchased at $10,400 a unit, according to Pedersen, the panels also met the budget parameters of the project.
Once the challenge of selecting the appropriate display format was overcome, Pedersen's team had to figure out how to install the wall into a space in which service access wasn't considered in architectural blueprints. The wall displays various cable TV and inhouse-produced video content — everything from cable TV channels such as CNN to live presentations occurring within the institute in real time — all processed by a Jupiter Fusion display-wall processor. That box, and other components — such as an AMX NI-700 NetLinx control processor — are situated in a control room that's 300 feet from the lobby on the first floor.
However, there are a number of components that needed to be mounted with the display system itself. For example, to reduce the cabling cost, Sextant's design called for the generous use of relatively inexpensive universal twisted pair (UTP) wiring (see sidebar). That meant that each display point in the building had to be equipped with its own Endeleo TVM-RX02 UTP processor.
And because 18 separately programmed LCD monitors can't audibly pump out 18 different audio channels into the lobby area simultaneously, each display wall monitor had to be equipped with a Drake ALT1000 assistive listing transmitter. (This allows any visitor to the institute equipped with a personal FM receiver to access each audio channel individually.)
Mounting each monitor and its assorted individual processing and audio modules required custom engineering. TPI subcontracted that task out to Santa Ana, CA-based RP Visual Solutions. Working with extruded metal, the company created a custom display wall mount that put all of this accessory equipment in the shallow cavity between the backs of the monitors and the building drywall, while allowing each monitor to slide out like a dresser drawer.
“They slide out on rails,” Pedersen explains. “You can pull each monitor out individually and service it. We probably could have mounted everything with (off-the-shelf) equipment, but we wouldn't have that serviceability.”
Tunnel vision
As visitors to the institute walk away from the lobby and into the three-story atrium area — an open, tunnel-like structure that connects buildings A and B — they can continue to view the same video feeds. Here, 24 Panasonic 50-inch TH-50PHD8UK plasma monitors are ceiling mounted in back-to-back pairings at various heights, using Display Devices PLMT and DPD-239 mounts, and scattered strategically throughout the space.
“All of the displays — those in the lobby and the atrium included — hub into the control room, which allows us not only to distribute cable TV, but Biodesign Institute programming, too,” Peacock explains. “The idea is that a visitor can continuously receive video messages as they walk through the atrium.”
Much of the programming that appears on the lobby and atrium monitors originates from presentations held in Building B's auditorium and two conference rooms, which are all equipped with Tandberg 6000 videoconferencing systems, AMX NI-4000 control, and Biamp AudiaFlex audio processing support.
All Building B meeting rooms also use a custom NetLinx-based control interface, programmed by TPI with the non-technical user in mind.
“TPI's approach is to give the user every option on a single screen, and let them trigger everything by clicking on one button, rather than letting them get lost in menus,” Peacock explains. “And as we go forward, we'll remove some of those buttons that we find don't get used much to make the interface look even less intimidating.”
All meeting rooms are designed for dual display, so that onscreen presentations can occur simultaneously with videoconferencing. Both of the two conference rooms, for example, feature two 65-inch Panasonic TH-65PHD7UY monitors, mounted side by side on the front walls.
Meanwhile, sitting adjacent to the lobby area, the auditorium features three Christie Digital LU77 LCD projectors for multi-display applications. “The idea is that you can project two images side by side,” Pedersen explains. “We also put a projector in the center for 16:9 format materials.”
Daniel Frankel is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles. He can be reached at daniel.frankel@variety.com.