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Winter 2006 Report
If you would like more information on any of these projects or stories, please contact Jeff Wilde, Partner, at (212) 725-6800 or jwilde@smwinc.com.

Critical Technology
Inside the de Young
Better Building, Better Education
Law Firm: Privacy and Quiet
Crown Fountain Wins!
Middle East Security

Critical Technology
Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) Headquarters, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Courtesy Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates

Architects: Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, London; Gensler, London (interiors)
Multimedia, telecommunications, trading floors, data centers, acoustics: Shen Milsom & Wilke, Dubai
Size: 786,000 square feet
Completion: January 2006

Challenge: The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority invests the Abu Dhabi government's oil revenues and assets. The agency's new headquarters building needed crucial technology to support operations, as well as three trading floors (or dealing rooms) and their associated spaces.

Solution: Kohn Pedersen Fox's elegant building, with its swerving lines, glass walls, delicate-looking structure, and open corridors, afforded minimal space for cables, wiring, and ductwork. To respect the architect's work, Shen Milsom & Wilke specified a wireless communication system, which functions smoothly and leaves precious wall space for other utilities. Technology cabling resides beneath raised floors whenever possible.

The trading floors support three major financial groups within ADIA. Each one occupies the better part of an entire floor. A logical layout and clear sightlines for communicating with other traders and viewing vital information displays are paramount in trading rooms. The curving glass walls meant displays had to be positioned along one solid wall and hung from the ceiling.

Perhaps the most complex spaces are the main data center, which takes up an entire floor, and the data center backup. Much of the technology in the rest of the building, including that in the three dealing rooms, is controlled from the data center. Shen Milsom & Wilke addressed all backup power, air conditioning, power distribution, fire protection, and security.

Keeping the data center cool is difficult in this harsh environment, despite heat-reflecting glass, and other steps taken by the architect. Modeling the space using computational fluid dynamics, software that simulates airflow, Shen Milsom & Wilke specified a raised floor for cool air distribution and maximized ceiling room for overhead ductwork and cable.

Shen Milsom & Wilke also designed multimedia and telecommunications systems, as well as building and interior acoustics for ADIA.

Inside the de Young
de Young Museum, San Francisco

Architects: Herzog & De Meuron, Basel; Fong & Chan, San Francisco
Telecommunications, multimedia: Shen Milsom & Wilke, San Francisco
Size: 293,000 square feet
Completion: October 2005

Challenge: The copper cladding that makes the new de Young so distinctive, also made the technology design within more challenging. Specifically, copper interferes with wireless signal transmission. So while de Young officials don't mind the copper restricting cell phone transmissions to the building, they needed seamless wireless coverage for their internal LAN.

Solution: Shen Milsom & Wilke's solution was to add infrastructure-there are 120 wireless access points within the building, about 50 percent more than would otherwise be needed. One advantage: the copper contains the wireless signal so it is harder to access unlawfully from the outside.

The network infrastructure at the new de Young is also significant. The museum's computers, phones, audiovisual system for streaming multimedia, point of sale for café and store, and all of the museum's Internet access rely upon it. In the future, the cable will also support a tour guide system and radio frequency identification (RFID) tracking for security purposes.

Integrating technology into a highly finished space like the de Young poses its own challenges. No one wants to look at outlets and floorboxes but access must be easy and flexible. To meet aesthetic requirements, Shen Milsom & Wilke concealed telecommunications outlets in specially designed wall pockets. Wireless access points were also strategically placed in the ceiling and display vitrines.

Shen Milsom & Wilke's design work also included digital signage displays in the museum entrance and multimedia presentation systems in the building's educational tower. There, classrooms are equipped with cameras, microphones, projectors, and teleconferencing systems providing a technically capable learning environment.

Better Building, Better Education
George Mason University Innovation Hall (Academic IV), Fairfax, VA

Courtesy George Mason University Creative Services

Architect: Cooper Robertson & Partners, New York City; with Gauthier, Alvarado & Associates, Falls Church, VA
Multimedia, acoustics: Shen Milsom & Wilke, Washington, DC
Size: 104,000 square feet
Completion: Autumn 2003

Challenge: George Mason University needed updated facilities to provide students with all the advantages of a 21st century education-wired classrooms, distance education, 24-hour computer labs, multimedia presentations, and more.

Solution: The university's new Innovation Hall does not house a particular school or academic unit, but hosts courses from across the curriculum in a collaborative atmosphere. With multimedia technology and acoustics designed by Shen Milsom & Wilke, the building includes 150- and 300-seat lecture halls with rear-screen projection, sound systems and wireless capability; videoconferencing rooms; and a classroom with geographic information system software. Each classroom incorporates a sound and projection system, video player, Internet connection for laptops, and "smart" lecterns to control the technology and room environment.

George Mason University Television produces distance education programming broadcast throughout Northern Virginia 24 hours a day via Internet streaming media. One of the most exciting portions of Innovation Hall is the television production complex, television studio with production control, a telecourse studio, and control and editing production rooms.

Shen Milsom & Wilke provided acoustical support, programming, architectural infrastructure, engineering, and broadcast equipment specifications for the studio and production space.

Law Firm: Privacy and Quiet
Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, San Francisco

Architect: STUDIOS Architecture, San Francisco
Acoustics: Shen Milsom & Wilke, San Francisco
Completion: January 2005

Challenge: International law firm Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP's new San Francisco quarters features a variety of acoustically challenging spaces, including a visitor's lobby with full-height glass, open conference and special purpose rooms, and open-plan work environments. How do they keep things quiet and maintain privacy?

Solution: Good acoustic planning guarantees that discussions among lawyers, clients, and their administrative teams stay within the office or the conference room. Shen Milsom & Wilke carefully integrated airtight, sound-isolating construction and sound-absorbing wall and ceiling treatments with the aesthetic concepts of STUDIOS Architecture.

In addition, a sound-masking system was installed in areas that required acoustical privacy. The sound level and frequency balance of each masking loudspeaker can be independently controlled from a remote laptop computer.

The result is a workplace that offers privacy, quiet, and good looks; STUDIOS and Orrick were recipients of a 2005 Design Excellence Award from the San Francisco Chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

Crown Fountain Wins!
The Crown Fountain, Millennium Park, Chicago

Architect: Krueck & Sexton Architects, Chicago
Multimedia: Shen Milsom & Wilke, Chicago
Sculptor: Jaume Plensa
Completion: July 2004

Shen Milsom & Wilke's work at Chicago's Crown Fountain won "Best Overall" in the third-annual ARCHI-TECH AV Awards 2005, sponsored jointly by the International Communications Industries Association and ARCHI-TECH Magazine. The competition honors the "creative and effective" integration of technology into design projects.

Crown Fountain features two 50-foot-tall, water-spurting glass-block towers at each end of a shallow reflecting pool. Behind the glass block, 24-by-49-foot LED video walls display changing digital images of Chicagoans.

Working with Krueck & Sexton Architects, Shen Milsom & Wilke designed the two video walls in the facing towers and a remotely operated show control system that synchronizes the images, water flow, and lighting color and intensity. All of these follow a carefully orchestrated script according to time of day, week, or month.

Middle East Security
For best results, combine technology, basic security principles, and early planning
By Robert Martino
Robert Martino leads Shen Milsom & Wilke's building security consulting team. He has experience on many different types of projects, including international airports, office high-rises, government buildings, and healthcare facilities.

A view of the Middle East from space

This year, Shen Milsom & Wilke participated in an expanding number of security projects in the Middle East. Supported by our offices in London, Hong Kong, and Dubai, we are at work in Bahrain, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar.

Many of these projects are slated for use in the upcoming 2006 Asian Games and, as such, will be frequented by world leaders. As a result, the nature of these projects and their regional association means a strong security presence is needed. We see this as an opportunity to employ our full scope of high-technology security design.

Early involvement--preferably at the master planning stage-is necessary. Working hand in hand with the architect, client, and civil engineering consultants, our first step is to employ Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) principles. This requires that our staff review from a security perspective: land contours, natural and native landscaping, building footprint, and building relationships. This assures that the master plan does not create security scenarios that will need to be addressed later.

Although there are technologies that can take care of security issues that present themselves in the later stages of the design process, these applications can be costly. The early application of CPTED principles assures that security concerns are addressed in a cost-effective way. Some of the concepts include the utilization of water features, ha-ha walls, earthen mounds, depressions, and planters.

Working with the architect and client to determine building placement and building relationships within a site is extremely important in "hardening" the facility and mitigating blast effects--an unfortunate but necessary consideration for today's high-profile facilities. Early participation in master planning lets us review and modify important site features such as internal roadways, vehicular entry and egress points, and parking proximity to structures. All of these, when carefully considered and viewed from a security perspective, can enhance building safety.

The basic CPTED methodologies are not meant to diminish the use of the electronic technology--in the forms of access control, CCTV, and so on. Rather, these methodologies augment the use of this technology by providing more focused applications.

Although at Shen Milsom & Wilke we are expert in technology design for security, we also understand that to provide a safe and secure environment in today's world, security design must go well beyond the application of electronic technology. It must address the overall function of each and every facility or campus we design.

Shen Milsom & Wilke, an international technology consulting practice founded in 1986, offers comprehensive services in the areas of multimedia/audiovisual, information technology/telecommunications, building security, and acoustics. The firm has a staff of more than 140 professionals and offices in New York, Princeton, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Houston, Denver, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Dubai, Hong Kong, and London-where we have formed a partnership with Sandy Brown Associates.