Bayes Business School
Boosting Business School Appeal
Looking to relocate and upgrade the flagship Bayes Business School facilities to fulfil the requirements of its discerning customer demographic, City St George’s, University of London engaged Aura to create world- class tech-enabled teaching and meeting spaces.
Strategic use of
tech solutions
True partnership
approach
Cutting-edge AV
technology
Business Challenge
The University decided to undertake a significant capital project to expand the School, consolidate sites and provide dedicated, high-spec facilities that would appeal to, and serve the needs of, the executive demographic, thus encouraging the growth of its student base. Maintaining premium tuition fees demanded a learning environment that looked and felt like a top-tier corporate HQ, while still enabling seamless hybrid delivery for global cohorts.
Solution
After working closely with this longstanding client to create the original spec for the Bayes Business School building upgrade at Finsbury Square, the Aura team’s true partnership approach was invaluable when challenges were presented.
Working through more than 20 successive scope and quotation revisions triggered by the shift in context post- pandemic, Aura split the programme into two phases: first a ‘keep-teaching’ light refurb to stabilise AV across 2020, then a full gut-and-refit delivered between summer 2021 and spring 2022.
With more teaching spaces now designed into the Finsbury Square building footprint, and supply chain challenges caused by the pandemic, a close working relationship between Aura, the University’s in-house team, the contractor and other partners became all the more important. Weekend wall moves, overnight cable pulls and rapid snag clearing kept disruption to a minimum – even with lecture theatres in daily use.
In addition, significant flexibility was required in terms of shifting the installation schedule to match the new programme of building works – required both for the new strategic direction, and unexpected building challenges which only became apparent to the contractor after starting on site.
For example, one of the video walls had originally been specified as a standard portrait format – 9:16 ratio – but it became apparent, after initially accessing the site, that there would not quite be enough room for this; dropping a row of tiles led to a bespoke 2:3 ratio solution for maximum impact in the available space.
All in all, the new scope of works encompassed fitting out six meeting rooms, 20 syndicate (small, hybrid meeting) rooms and a group room, 11 seminar rooms, nine lecture theatres, four PC labs and a boardroom. A café/event hub on the seventh floor – the exec level – now boasts a projection screen, while TeamMate collaboration tables with attached screens offer AV capabilities in the syndicate and group rooms. Seminar spaces feature lecterns, ceiling microphones, and multiple displays to suit their layouts. Every teaching space is Zoom enabled, while unified room-booking and digital-signage platform ties the experience together.
There were varying tech requirements for the different room types based on teaching methods, although care was taken to ensure consistency across the building – no mean feat against the backdrop of pandemic-related product shortages. Each room had to facilitate the highest standards of teaching, and was designed in a meticulous manner, to meet requirements including ergonomic viewing angles to screens for every single student, while still hitting the target student numbers in each space.
We’ve enjoyed a long relationship with Aura, and they’ve always made us feel that we are important to them, no matter how big or small the project in question. Although they’ve grown significantly over the years, they’ve always kept the kind of personal level of service you’d expect from a small company, which really sets them apart. It’s massively helpful when you’re trying to get a high-value, high-impact project over the line to know that you’ve got a true partner tech specialist on your side.
Michael Sadler, AV Design and Commissioning Manager,
City St George’s, University of London
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