Due to the explosive growth of the county of Riverside a larger County Building was required to support the needs of the county taxpayers. Part of the new County Building included a new County Boardroom. The new Boardroom functions were, in part, dictated by the existing 7 Member Board Dais, which needed to be translated to a 39-seat Board Dais boardroom capable of cable broadcasting, local viewing and archiving of presented information.
The County of Riverside is the fourth largest county in California, stretching nearly 200 miles across and comprising over 7,200 square miles of fertile river valleys, low deserts, mountains, foothills and rolling plains. By 2003, the County was “home” to over 1.7 million residents – more than the entire population of 13 states, among them Maine, Nevada, Hawaii, and New Hampshire.
When Thorburn Associates Inc. was brought on board for the acoustical and audiovisual engineering, we were able to incorporate the design of the room with the technology design. The original plan included front projection with sight line issues from both the camera and display systems. The building design allowed for dual rear-projection displays on the left and right sides of the full Dais layout. The Board and Committee members view all display information on XGA flat panel displays. To support the viewing of high-resolution images, all visual images are scaled to XGA resolution when viewed in the chambers. Likewise all computer images are scaled for display in the lobby and for the feed to the cable television system.
All of the audiovisual technology seen in the boardroom has been integrated into the casework for a clean finished look. The production control area can view the activities of the boardroom through one-way glass; the “static equipment” is located in the equipment room behind the main Dais area.