The Canadian Museum of Human Rights breaks the mold with its avant-garde AV installation

The architecture of the building that houses the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg has presented Electrosonic with significant challenges when implementing the complex AV infrastructure of its 11 galleries.

The new Canadian Museum for Human Rights (Canadian Museum for Human Rights) the Winnipeg (Manitoba) presents an innovative architectural design, made by the American Antoine Predock, in which stone steel has been used, glass and concrete for its construction and which has been provided with alabaster ramps and stone-clad bridges, crisscrossing an atrium 51,8 metros.

A design that has posed important challenges to Electrosonic when integrating the complex AV installation with which the building has been equipped.

Electrosonic has been responsible, together with Advance Pro, of the installation of the audiovisual design of the eleven galleries that make up the museum and where a large number of interactive touch screens and projection equipment have been installed, as well as an audio infrastructure that has had to adapt to the acoustics of the building. A project in which companies have also participated SH Acoustics, LLC of Milford and Connecticut to provide the sound structure.

“This is not a museum with typical galleries as there is not a single right-angled wall., some are triangular with less than half a meter of space at their widest point. It is designed so that the exhibitions held on the fifth floor can be seen from the first floor., “Aspects that had to be taken into account when creating the audio infrastructure”, explica Steve Haas, president and consultant of SH Acoustics.

In addition, Different theaters are located throughout the museum., There is even one outdoors in which three projectors have been installed on the ceiling Barco HDX-W20 Flex that are managed with the system Dataton Watchout to be able to make the projections.

The Indigenous Perspectives gallery is one of the most spectacular spaces in the museum that focuses attention on a theater where a 360º curved screen has been installed where visitors can watch a video where stories of indigenous rights and responsibilities are shared., told through four different generations. The room also has six Barco CNWU-61B projectors and a seventh available for special presentations. An infrastructure that is also managed by Watchout software.

The Canadian Journeys sala, the largest in the museum, explore dozens of Canadian stories, from democratic rights to linguistic rights and from freedom of conscience to non-discrimination. It has a theater with a single Barco CNWU-61B projector, and a digital canvas that transmits stories through a screen of 29 metros. It also has four projectors Panasonic PT-DS20KU.

another gallery, la Examining the Holocaust, features a single screen and a Barco CNWU-61B projector. Fragments that symbolize the Nazis' 'Infamous Kristallnacht' are displayed on its walls.. A second theater, watch a film with the Ukrainian Holocaust (Ukrainian Holodomor), presenting a similar configuration. A combination of four projectors feed the projection of 24,3 metros.

Finally, In the Rights Today gallery, three Barco CNWU-61Bs have been installed to display the contents, on the surface of an interactive wall, which are carried out through a TVOne system. It also has a small theater that encourages visitors to think critically about what they see and read..

Interactive AV infrastructure

Visitors also have, throughout your visit to the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, of numerous interactive screens, among which you can see touch models Link Touch of 27 inches. To ensure that everyone can access interactive services, Electrosonic collaborated closely with the museum team to design Key Pads that allow people with disabilities to also enjoy this technology.

The museum has an audiovisual infrastructure that includes equipment from different manufacturers, So at Canadian Journeys there are different Samsumg equipment available, NEC y Viewsonic; while the Protecting Rights in Canada gallery has 15 information points that integrate Elo touch screens and monitors Samsung of 65 inches.

Four interactive stations have been installed in the gallery exploring the Universal Declaration of Human Rights., each of them composed of two Samsung monitors of 55 inches mounted in portrait format and equipped with gesture recognition technology Microsoft Kinect. You can also see a digital study table composed of 12 MultiTouch touch screens 55 inches mounted face up, from side to side. A Media Literacy Theater incorporates two Samsung monitors 75 inches, which is hung in vertical mode, one on top of the other.

Actions Count, a gallery aimed at young visitors, presents a visual solution composed of three interactive tables that offers a gesture recognition game with which it is intended that visitors reflect on how the decisions made in everyday life affect others. To complete the experience, the room has three Barco CNWU-61B projectors..

Sound and audio

In this architecturally challenging museum, compact linear loudspeaker arrays and ceiling arrays have been deployed. Brown Innovations, Renkus Heinz and shelving equipment Tannoy 2-D to improve the feeling of immersion in theaters. Loudspeakers have been used in the Examining the Holocaust and Breaking the Silence galleries. Innovox, embedded in the banks.

El Indigenous Perspectives, which has benches located throughout the room to facilitate viewing the large panoramic screen and visual access to the central area where guest artists perform, posed a great challenge to the technicians.. Instead of directing sound across the room, Tannoy speakers were placed behind the screens.

Likewise, a wooden wall has been arranged in a wavy shape that creates the perfect diffusion in this circular room and offers another 'visually unique' design element.’ with compact subwoofers James Loudspeaker placed under the benches.

Biamp AudiaFLEX CMs were the main audio processors used in the museum, while Medialon Manager provides supervision and control of most of the equipment in the museum.