CentraleSupélec engineers are trained with Digital Projection laser technology

This prestigious French engineering school promotes knowledge and training in its classrooms in its new campus with laser projectors from this manufacturer.

Created in 2015 of the merger of two important French engineering schools – Supélec y Paris École Centrale -, CentraleSupélec has recently inaugurated its third campus: Paris-Saclay, which after completing its first academic year joins those existing in Rennes and Metz, offering more learning opportunities to a total of 4.200 students.

Located in the Southwest of Paris, this new campus - ambitious from an architectural point of view -, It is the result of six years of consultation and work by experts, whose objective has been to facilitate interaction and communication between all parties involved, through wide open spaces that represent the value of the university's knowledge exchange.

For almost two centuries, CentraleSupélec's best engineers have been using their skills and knowledge to support the development of corporate institutions and public organizations. Located in the Yvelines region, the new CentraleSupélec campus is made up of two separate buildings: with an area of ​​more than 25.000 m2: the building Francis Bouygues, funded by a public-private partnership, and Gustave Eiffel, of 48.000 m2, financed by the French state.

In this last case, the architecture studio OWN He imagined the Eiffel building with a wide diagonal around which open and shared spaces are arranged. With glass ceilings and partitions, The building brings in the outside and benefits from a large amount of natural light.

To design an environment that promotes knowledge and training for the next generation of engineers, the school trusted the French scenography agency dUCKS scéno, who worked closely with the solutions integrator AV Tech-Audio.

During the tender, The integrator distinguished itself from the competition by presenting a project that was both financially and technically relevant, offering modern and sustainable solutions that comprised a complete network of projectors that respected the architectural concept of OMA, while providing efficiency and reliability.

For the main auditoriums and conference rooms of this building, which are used for conferences and classes and various events, including graduation ceremonies and shows, the integrator specified laser projectors from the British manufacturer Digital Projection.

By Amélie Chasseriaux, dUCKS scéno project manager, “This architectural project integrates floor-to-ceiling windows with views of the atrium, that extends through all the amphitheaters. Therefore, it was essential to benefit from powerful projectors, capable of providing enough brightness so that students could clearly see content while taking notes in broad daylight, without having to resort to curtains”.

Specifically, A total of twelve Digital Projection laser projectors have been installed in the Gustave Eiffel building: seven E-Vision Laser models 6500 They are located in the smallest auditorium, with capacity 50 a 120 places, while an E-Vision Laser device 8500 guarantees visual content for the theater, con 120 seats.

Two more M-Vision laser projectors serve the school's catering area, and three E-Vision Laser models 8500 are found in the Grand Hemicycle, the largest conference room in the building, with capacity for 960 students.

The latter in particular was designed as a modular space, and as such it can be divided into three different parts thanks to the folding partitions housed in the roof. Live content management and layout are handled with a video processor Analog Way Move up to various room configurations.

Switching matrices Extron and DTP/HDMI converters were previously installed, and all control rooms are connected by fiber optic branches to allow live transmission of events to and from the main areas of the building.

Séverine Zaepffel, AV Tech-Audio project manager, explains that “one of the main criteria for the specifications was maintenance. Digital Projection projectors are used daily, both for the school curriculum and for adjacent activities. We knew laser technology would help dramatically reduce maintenance costs, by not having to replace the lamp, so we immediately turned to this manufacturer, pioneer in high-brightness laser projection technology”.

Another fundamental requirement is that all interested parties respect OMA's architectural work., as well as the Ducks design concept, and that is why all the companies involved achieved this objective by working together, no compromises in terms of functionality, no shortcuts in maintenance.

“The main conference room was, definitely, the most complex in terms of integration -acknowledges Amélie Chasseriaux-; It was simply impossible to install the projectors at the back of the atrium, due to the height of the ceiling and the fact that there was no control room. We also had to follow the requirements of the room in terms of aesthetics and practical performance, regardless of configuration, with open or closed partitions. To minimize the visual impact of projectors, “We opted for a rear projection configuration.”.