Consultants to the Arts and Culture
SOUTHERN CROSS CATHOLIC VOCATIONAL TRAINING COLLEGE
Construction project completed in 2013
SCCVC is a vocational training facility that provides senior students with training in various skills and trades including technical production and content development. We were engaged by the Catholic Education Office to work with the architects to design and document all technical systems for the facility which included a recording studio, TV production suite and a 450-seat multi-use theatre.
Training Theatre
The training theatre is a flexible black-box space designed to expose students to every aspect of technical production in a safe and accessible environment to prepare them for the types of equipment, procedures and situations they are likely to encounter on the job.
The grid consists of seven main load beams that run the length of the room, the odd numbered beams have beam trolleys supporting seven lighting bars running perpendicular. The lighting bars can be rolled up and down stage between supports for the tension wire grid. The tension wire grid is a walkable mesh that provides a safe and secure environment for students to interact with rigging, lighting and loudspeakers without the risk of falling. The even numbers load beams have additional beam trolleys with chain hoists that can be move up and down stage the length of the room with the hook passing through the tension wire grid to suspend trusses, loudspeakers, etc.
The tension wire grid, which we specified up to allow capacity for 8 people simultaneously, is surrounded by a catwalk with a lighting bar and access to the grid is gated. There is over 180 2.4kW dimmer outlets available in the grid with another 96 channels distributed between the 1st floor catwalk and floor outlets.
The audio system consists of a DiGiCo SD8 console with 48 inputs from stage that are passively split to multi-pin connections on the level 1 catwalk with portable cables to connect to a rental monitor console as needed. There are multiple NL4 speaker outlets in the grid for the connection of loudspeakers as required. The system consists of NEXO PS15 and PS8 loudspeakers with a pair of portable RS15 subwoofers. The tranformer ISO split from the passive splits feed directly to patch-fields in the recording studio.
Recording Studio
The recording facility consists of an over-sized control room to allow for class sizes, a main recording room and an iso booth. The loudspeaker system is Dynaudio AIR system in a 5.1 mid-field and stereo near-field arrangement. The console is the Digidesign Control24 with 64 channels of Focusrite ISA mic preamps and Apogee analog to digital conversion.
A pair of large screen displays are mounted on the bulkhead to allow the students in the room to see various inputs including the two local monitors, a camera from the training theatre and an overhead camera focused on the console. The facility is provided with stock of microphones, stands and cables as well as performer monitoring systems.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The people and companies that made it happen.
Thanks for Seamus O'Grady and Paul Gibson for getting us involved in the project and to Peter Morson from Thomson Adsett Architects for his willingness to understand the technical reuirements.
Our Client
Our team was led by Scott Willsallen who designed the audio and control systems, Ian Anderson designed lighting and rigging, Peter Griffiths from Acoustic Studio designed the acoustics and Luis Miranda supported the team.
Our Team
The team from the Rutledge AV Sydney office lead by Bosco Tan did a great job supplying and installing the systems to an excellent standard.