Project Perspective
City of Whittlesea, located in the northern suburbs of Melbourne, covers approximately 490 square kilometres, has an estimated population of around 250,000, and is classed as one of Victoria’s fastest-growing municipalities.
In their own words, the audio visual equipment in City of Whittlesea’s council chamber was “ad hoc in nature,” “lacked any as-built documentation,” and “ageing,” so it required a complete overhaul and replacement. UT Consulting worked with JMA Architects to design a flexible space to support formal meetings, hybrid meetings, video conferencing, and live streaming.
The system needed to be flexible and robust, all while supporting the complex needs of a working council. At the time, to maintain council obligations around recording and streaming for transparency, the council would set up, manually operate, and pack down video equipment for each council meeting.
Ultimately, this cumbersome, time-consuming manual process would become automated as part of the upgrade.
Technical Requirements
The main goal of the project was to upgrade the council chambers to provide modern hybrid meeting capabilities for council meetings and formal meetings while upgrading live streaming and recording capabilities.
Outcomes
In order to make hybrid meetings flow naturally, and the technology as unobtrusive as possible, a sightline experience was selected, meaning no matter where councillors are sitting, a screen is always in front of them—allowing natural interactions with both local and remote participants alike.
