Educational Environments- MEDIA MAJLIS at Northwestern University Qatar

The Media Majlis in Northwestern University in Qatar (NU-Q) consists of Multiple Digital Media Zones, consisting of Interactive and Non- Interactive architectural LCD displays, Video walls of various sizes which will run specialized content specifically designed for each zone. Moreover, each zone will have its own Audio system, lighting effects, as well as architectural display cases furniture cladding for each set of LCD displays.

Background

The Media Majlis is a museum that operates as a non-profit educational entity within the university, a private, nonsectarian, coeducational institution, originally founded in 1851 in Evanston, Illinois, United States. It will be located in a purpose-built space within the University’s new building in Qatar foundation education city and will open its first exhibition in September 2018. The bilingual museum will be open regular hours, to all audiences, and will not charge for admission. It will be Qatar’s first university museum. The purpose of The Media Majlis is to explore, discuss and interrogate media, journalism and communication—pasts, presents and futures—through global, regional and local/Qatar lenses. The museum will use extensive digital assets in order to examine the content, messages and outcomes of various media, as well as physical objects. The primary output of The Media Majlis shall be exhibitions.

Challenges

The biggest challenge in this project was the modification of hanging steel structure called “Armature” where the Videowalls and Individual monitors of various sizes are installed (Refer attached pictures). The customer’s requirement was to pull all sorts of cables (AV, Fiber, Power) inside the armature and no cable should be exposed due to Museum Aesthetics. The Armature has welded joints and most joints are blocked so it was not possible to run any cables inside Armature pipes without modifying the steel structure. Another challenge was the synchronization of the content between the various groups of displays. The content in the Museum is realtime being played on high-end GPU machines located at a distance of approximately 1000meters from the Museum Area. In addition to GPU Machines, the control system, Audio Processing as well as matrix switchers were also located in the same control room 1000meters away from the Museum area.

Solutions

The Armature (Steel Structure) issue was resolved by drilling holes on the intersection of Armature pipes which allowed to bypass the cable routes from the blocked Armature intersections. Every time any hole needs to be drilled, a detailed structural analysis was done considering the weight of all AV equipment (displays, brackets, speakers, lights, etc).

It was not possible to drill holes wherever we want as there were a lot of restrictions from the structural analysis. A total of 127 holes of 30mm in diameter were drilled on the Armature steel structure to bypass cable routes on the Armature blocked intersections. This also facilitated bending radius limitations of various AV cables. The synchronization issue was resolved using the time clock technique as well as using built- in features of the graphics engine which is VENTUZ in this project. The design was also simplified using Point-to-point connections to resolve any latency issues.

Results

One of the biggest achievements in this project is the delivery time. The planned implementation duration was 4 months but due to Armature issues and late delivery of equipment, the duration was shrunk and implemented in 2 months. Moseco as a company learnt to adapt to the needs of the client and work to rectify issues as they come up. This also promoted Moseco to receive various new inquiries in the Digital Museum sectors of Qatar. Northwestern University in Qatar now has the first Media Digital Museum in the region which is a great immersive educational tool, as well as an attraction to prospective students and public visitors.

Nominating Company– MOSECO
Project Name– MEDIA MAJLIS at Northwestern University Qatar