Creating buildings that are fit for the future

The Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities, which opened in the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter (ROQ) at the end of September this year, is a remarkable building – both as a testament to the importance of the humanities in the University and as a public performance space.

As well as seven Humanities faculties, the Centre also hosts four research units and the Bodleian Humanities Library. In effect, the Centre houses departments from across two academic divisions and GLAM. As well as enabling education and research, the Centre has a public cultural programme informed by humanities research, and a commercial operation.

The design, build, and operations of modern buildings are underpinned by IT. The Schwarzman Centre has everything you would expect in terms of networking, audio-visual (AV), digital signage, access control and building management systems, but at scale. The integrated performance spaces, especially the concert hall, offers additional complexity. The state-of-the-art lighting and staging control mechanisms are a reminder that IT is not the only technology. 

More than just counting the IT things 

In numbers alone there are:  

• 188 network access switches across 11 cabinets and 39 Slimline Active Learning Consoles (SALCS) supporting AV;  
• 

  65 virtual networks supporting faculties, research centres, AV, building management, and an ‘Internet of Things’;  

• resilient 40Gb links to the University network with 25Gb core building network and 10Gb links to the AV SALCs;  
• 5,928 data ports for offices, AV, Internet of Things, wireless access points and building services;  
• 236 wireless access points designed to provide 99% wireless coverage in teaching spaces, offices, public areas and performance spaces;  
• 44 lecture capture appliances across the teaching and performance spaces together with  
• over 40 Microsoft Teams devices in the meeting rooms, and a large video wall in the atrium.  

More about people than technology – professional services working together 

These are only some of the numbers but counting IT things does not tell much of a story, except that the Schwarzman Centre, like the Life and Mind Building, encompasses teaching, research and (in the case of the Schwarzman Centre) public engagement at a large scale. In fact, the story of IT Services’ involvement in the development of what is now the Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities has a longer history, and it is more about people working together than it is about technology.

The Schwarzman Centre is, from an IT perspective, a symbol of how professional services teams can collaborate with shared objectives – end-to-end – involving the Humanities IT team and Head of Technology, IT Services, Estates Services, Humanities capital projects and operations, third-party consultants, and the building’s primary contractor. 

2009 Review of IT requirements 

Back in 2009, and as part of the initial planning for a Humanities building in the ROQ, a team from IT Services were commissioned by the Division to lead a review of the IT requirements that would arise from a number of Humanities faculties being physically located in one building. Although technology, and how it supports education and research, has changed significantly since 2009, the recommendations included themes that remain familiar to those who have been involved in the design and operation of the Schwarzman Centre or indeed any recent new build or refurbishment project: shared and flexible teaching spaces, wireless everywhere, shared software engineering team for research projects, housing of shared research facilities (in this case digital humanities, libraries and digitisation), consolidated IT support, and so on. 

Humanities IT and AV Steering Group 

 Ten years later, the announcement, in June 2019, of the major donation from Stephen A. Schwarzman to fund the Humanities Centre triggered a fresh cycle of requirements gathering and consultation. In the IT context this included development of guiding principles for common IT infrastructure, shared spaces, and the shape and size of IT support within the building and across the Division more generally.

Understanding how the building should operate in practice – effectively working backwards from the desired outcome – is a fundamental requirement even before appointing an architect. IT, like buildings, enable people to function. The specifics of technology to be deployed are driven by how any given space will be used (which, for some spaces, may include multiple use cases).

With function in mind the Stephen A. Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities IT & AV Steering Group was formed in June 2020 with the remit to develop proposals for an IT and AV strategy, and its implementation. IT Services also allocated a senior manager as an interface between the project and the various IT Services teams. That role persisted until external consultants for AV and associated services were procured on behalf of the project. 

The membership of the IT & AV Group included representation from amongst academics, professional services, and IT management; together with representation from Estates Services and project consultants. The Group was tasked with ensuring there was a coherent and holistic approach to the provision and ongoing support of IT and AV infrastructure throughout the building.

A three-tier model, previously used for scoping IT and AV in the development of Reuben College, was further refined to establish what would be common to the building, shared between the occupant groups, and distinct to each group. For example, the building would have one common physical network. The network physical infrastructure (from cables to comms rooms, to switches, firewalls, wireless access points and data outlets) are part of the building fabric, and enablers for whole-building services. The AV platform is also a building-level service (and increasingly deployed in other new builds or refurbishments), making it easier to walk up and present in shared teaching and meeting spaces.

There are also shared platforms, where one solution is configured for different occupant groups, for example: building access control, room booking, printing, local wireless services, and digital signage.

Finally, the technologies bespoke to any given occupant mostly relate to specialised research facilities or, in the case of the Schwarzman Centre, the performance spaces (for which specialised consultancy was procured). The Steering Group operated until the final design was agreed towards the end of 2022 – the pre-requisite to beginning the actual build phase that commenced, in practice, in February 2023.  

What has been delivered? 

Networks 

Everything, it seems, now needs a network connection.

The Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities has been equipped with a state-of-the-art wired and wireless network designed for reliability, security, and flexibility comprising, amongst other things, network switches, firewalls and network access control, and wireless access points. The use of virtual local area networks (VLANs) enables the physical building network to be segmented for different purposes –such as faculty, research centre and library data, wireless services, AV systems, and smart building controls. At its core is a resilient architecture that ensures the network remains operational even if individual components fail.

The network is also scalable to meet the expected growth in data traffic and complexity. The design of the wireless network and the oversight of its implementation formed part of the Improving Wireless Programme, a flagship programme of the University’s Technology Portfolio that is both delivering and providing the ongoing support for a strategic wireless networking platform being installed across the University (built on the Juniper Mist AI platform). 

The commissioning of the network included extensive testing – cable certification (100% pass rate), automated network switch configuration and testing, redundancy testing between the different layers of the network stack, successful integration testing of the network and AV management platform (Q-Sys), and roaming and density testing of the wireless network. Advanced monitoring tools, together with AI-driven management for the wireless network, provide real-time alerts, diagnostics, and problem resolution which should result in a more reliable network overall and, despite the size of the network, without increasing the size of the overall support team.  

AV 

In common with other IT Services teams, the IT Services AV Support Services team have been closely involved in the AV design and implementation since 2019/20.

The nature of AV is that to be effective it needs to reflect an understanding of the space and the ways in which it will be used. It is not possible to design and deploy an optimised AV solution without consultation with the architect, the lighting, acoustics and furnishing consultants, as well as user representatives, specialist AV and IT network experts.

The size of the building and the number of internal spaces to be fitted with AV solutions required a different approach to that deployed in individual spaces in other University buildings. A foundational principle, now common to building-wide AV solutions, is that AV will be connected to the building network. Running AV over the building network, amongst other things, minimises the amount of AV equipment installed in any teaching or meeting room. The AV servers and other backend hardware can be put where they belong – in server rooms out of sight.

The Schwarzman Centre makes use of Slimline Active Learning Consoles (SALCs) both as an interface between the front-facing AV devices (screen, cameras, microphones and speakers) and the backend servers, and as an interface for users to connect their own devices should the in-room Microsoft Teams device, for example, not be suitable. AV over the network also makes it easier to broadcast content across different and distinct spaces. Earlier in the project the AV consultant to the project, Hewshott, showcased proof of concept rooms for the Humanities Division, demonstrating how the standard AV setup would work in practice (which allowed for further refinements in response to user feedback). 

The pandemic lockdown introduced the University to the use of Microsoft Teams for teaching and meetings at scale. The use of Microsoft Teams as a means of sharing content within a room as well as beyond it, is built into the forty-plus meeting and seminar rooms in the building, and integrated with the University’s Office 365 tenancy (Nexus).

The core teaching and performance spaces also have lecture capture appliances integrated with the University’s instance of Panopto. For assistive listening the rooms support Auracast (using Bluetooth to stream high quality audio to users who require it).

Every bookable room has a panel showing room use and availability. Digital signage allows for customised communications to users of the building. All the AV platforms are common to the building optimising the management, configuration and user experience.  Collaboration between the IT Services and Humanities AV and IT teams has enabled a technician and two apprentices to be allocated to the Schwarzman Centre (a similar model for AV using 'locally-based, centrally-managed' support is also in place for the Life and Mind Building).  

Desktop and printing 

IT Services provided pre-configured desktops for those occupants in the Schwarzman Centre that use the Managed Staff Desktop Service, ensuring that they were ready for use as soon as they connected to the building network.

Under the principle of preference for common or shared platforms, those working in the building have the benefit of a modern, reliable printing system. Using their University Single Sign-On, staff and postgraduates can print from any departmental or Managed Staff desktop to any of the printers throughout the building. The simplicity of the printing platform hides the complexity that resulted in the close collaboration of the Humanities IT team, vendors, and (using the IT Services relationship management function) teams responsible for managing devices, virtualised servers, the Core User Directory and Microsoft Entra ID.  

Better for everyone

As with the overall design and deployment of IT within the building, the implementation of a unified printing solution exemplifies what is possible when IT specialists work together to address a challenge holistically, with respect for, and recognition of, each team’s local knowledge and technical expertise -- professional services working together to make things better for everyone in support of the University’s academic mission.