Historically the installed AV on the Ipswich campus happened in three phases.  These were Waterfront, Campus North refurbishment and James Hehir building.  Lessons were learned from each build and changes were made.

Waterfront
For the original Waterfront building, following consultation with stakeholders, an Audio Visual Systems Specification was produced by a consultant which would be used for the basis of the installed AV.  Two large lecture theatres would be equipped for 140 seats and other teaching rooms ranging from 18 to 80 seats.  In addition a digital signage system would be provided.  A late addition was a boardroom and late exclusions were video conferencing and media screening facilities. The contract was won by Asysco, who were not the consultants for the original specification. The wiring containment was that specified in the original specification, and was fixed with the building contractor and no variation could be made without cost.  The building wiring containment restrictions resulted in some compromises in the final AV installation.  The main ones being: eight 18 seater teaching rooms were without containment for ceiling mounted projectors; five 30 seater rooms on the fourth floor had containment that made the rooms long and narrow, which in turn gave limited wall space for projection and white boards.  One criteria for the AV installations was that it should be easy to use and where possible the user experience would be the same in all rooms.  As a result the set up is very similar in all rooms: Desk, PC, local write on monitor, visualiser, control panel, inputs plate, projector, screen, vga switcher, amplifier and speakers (larger rooms also had a microphone input on the desk top to the room's audio system).  A slight variation in the eight 18 seater rooms with no projector wiring containment where they were fitted with 42" LCD panels.  In addition the two large lecture theatres had voice reinforcement (including wireless microphones) and hearing loops.

Campus North (Refurbishment)
This project was all about refurbishing legacy buildings which had been part of Suffolk College estate to replace teaching spaces following the demolition of the Suffolk College twin towers .  Once again consultation had taken place with interested stakeholders in attempt to give the teaching population what they needed, .

The Suffolk College towers now demolished

The legacy buildings were T block, R block, L block (containing the library) and P block.  Some accommodation that had been lost needed to be replaced this included some large teaching spaces for 100 students.  Science laboratories also needed to be replaced.  Teaching rooms would be equipped in a similar style to the new Waterfront building.   A slight modification was added this was a desktop video / audio input to allow local images to be seen on a large screen.  Two large rooms would be constructed from smaller rooms in T block to each accommodate 100 students.  This need resulted in two long thin rooms which were equipped with 'side by side' projectors and screens.  Two science laboratories were equipped with AV.  The VERT suite was moved into T block with its own back projected 3-D images and a normal AV setup.  Four IT rooms were created from those that had been in the two blocks and put on the top floor of T block.  These rooms were equipped with projectors, audio and input control systems.  The Art staff requested that rooms were kept free of fixed furniture to allow more versatility of the space.  As a result rooms in R block had no TeamMates but were equipped with 'IT' style set up.  Ceiling mounted projector, wall mounted speakers, input wall plate and wall control panel.  Audio amplifier and input switcher were ceiling mounted to keep them out of the way.  Inputs to the PC could be added or removed by local users and simply plugged into the wall.  The library had some AV 'pods' installed which gave small groups a space to work with a PC and a large screen.  As the AV installations were going into existing and older buildings containment was restricted, therefore the majority of installations would be wired to walls rather than through floors.  Wall connections would be removable to allow equipment to be 'reused' in future building projects.  This restricition also caused some challenges with trip hazards in teaching rooms.  Digital signage has been extended to Campus North.

James Hehir Building
The James Hehir building was designed to be mainly for Science and Health courses.  There would be provision for Science research needs.  The ground floor would be dedicated to Student bar and carering facilities.  The original building specification included provision of an 'i-lab' with no real specification of what an 'i-lab' was.  This ended up as a room a teaching AV solution plus tables that had power and data to the desk top, and a 'lap safe' with 16 laptops.  The building also provided nurse training facilities which were original in the Suffolk College towers and had briefly been provided by the Campus North (refurbishment).  These nursing areas would include CCTV to record hospital activities for training and assessment purposes.  Science laboratories would have teaching AV systems installed.  These included a benched lab with multi screens to allow students around the room to see from their bench without needing to all look forward, as in a normal classroom.  The AV installations were based on those originally used in the Waterfront project.  One addition to the build was provision of an XLR microphone input on the desktop all rooms could the provide voice reinforcement with the addition of a microphone..  The top floor of the building was equipped with a teaching AV solution in two rooms.  This floor was then leased out and one of the AV installations removed.  A digital signage screen was provided in the entrance to the James Hehir building.

More Recent Classroom AV Operations
The construction of the James Hehir building resulted in some redundancies of AV equipment in East building (T block).  This is because some Health and Science facilities had to be taken out of the Suffolk College towers and would always end up in James Hehir but the timing of one closing and the other opening needed an interim solution.  This gave an opportunity to provide some other AV equipped teaching spaces.  O block (West building) had been 'moth-balled' in the Campus North (reburbishment) project but has been brought back in to use.  LT5 is under part of the libary and has ben equipped with a Campus North AV installation taken out of T Block.  The Waterfront had been provided with a Learning Resource Centre on the second floor.  It was decided to convert this into a large teaching space.  Again an ex- T Block AV installtion was adapted to provide the AV solution.  A larger projector was added for the larger space.  Also, voice reinforcement and a hearing loop was added.  this has become Waterfront Auditorium.or WAD.  The 8 waterfront rooms that had been installed with 42" LCD panels rather than projectors, because of containment issues, were re-visited and 4 have been converted to rooms with ceiling mounted projectors with the other 4 to follow.  The library pods had been popular so similar pods have been provided on the Waterfront first floor.  Meeting rooms in IT Services and Estates departments have been provided with installed AV solutions using equipment originally used in T Block.
 

Build A Waterfront 60 - 80 seaters
Plan - Waterfront 60 - 80 seats - wiring and layout

Build B Waterfront 30 seats
Plan - Waterfront 30 seats - wiring and layout

Build C Waterfront 18 seats
Plan - Waterfront 18 seats - wiring and layout
Four rooms had panels replaced with projectors. There are currently no build plans available. The panel's functions were replaced with a projector and active wall mounted speakers.

Build D Waterfront Lecture Theatres
Plan - Waterfront - LT1 - audio
Plan - Waterfront LT1 - containment
Plan - Waterfront - LT1 - video
Plan - Waterfront - LT1 - control
Plan - Waterfront - LT1 - rack layout
Plan - Waterfront - LT2 - audio
Plan - Waterfront - LT2 - containment
Plan - Waterfront - LT2 - video
Plan - Waterfront - LT2 - control
Plan - Waterfront - LT2 - rack layout

Build E Waterfront Boardroom
Plan - Waterfront - W602 Boardroom - wiring and layout

Build F Campus North Standard Teaching Room
Plan - Campus North - Standard Room - video schematic
Plan - Campus North - Standard Room - audio schematic
Plan - Campus North - Standard Room - control schematic

Build G Campus North Double Projector Teaching Room

Build H Campus North IT Style Teaching Room

Other Installations
Plan - Waterfront - Digital Signage - wiring and layout