Pacific delivers a £2.2 million AV fit-out across 66 teaching and collaboration spaces at UCL’s new Marshgate Building
Working alongside UCL and MACE, Pacific designed, installed and commissioned a comprehensive AV solution to support flexible teaching, hybrid learning and collaborative research within UCL East’s flagship academic building.
During the summer of 2023, Pacific successfully delivered a comprehensive AV fit-out for University College London’s (UCL) new state-of-the-art Marshgate Building. Valued at over £2.2 million, the project encompassed the integration of audiovisual technology across 66 individual spaces, including six lecture theatres, 32 teaching rooms, four PC labs, departmental spaces and specialist laboratories.
Awarded the contract in December 2022, Pacific planned and executed the installation in time for the start of the academic year in September 2023.
The Solution
As the main teaching hub of UCL East, the Marshgate Building required a cutting-edge AV infrastructure to support innovative, flexible and collaborative learning environments.
The installation included dual-projection systems, ceiling-mounted microphones, PTZ cameras for lecture capture and Crestron control panels within the lecture theatres. Teaching rooms featured standardised AV systems with interactive projection, networked lecture capture and intuitive user interfaces, while PC labs were equipped with AV-over-IP solutions to support collaboration and screen sharing.
Specialist laboratories and collaborative spaces were designed to support Technology Enhanced Active Learning (TEAL), integrating multiple interactive displays and flexible furniture layouts. Meeting and breakout spaces were fully AV-enabled with conferencing technology and digital signage to support hybrid meetings across UCL's academic community.
Teams
Pacific worked closely with UCL’s AV Design Team, the main contractor MACE and electrical contractor Dornan throughout the project
How We Did It
From the outset, Pacific carried out extensive planning to align the AV installation with the wider construction and M&E programme. The project was delivered in three phases, beginning with pre-works and first fix activities in February 2023, followed by second fix installations throughout the summer and concluding with testing, commissioning and user training ahead of the new academic year.
To deliver the project efficiently, Pacific deployed five dedicated two-engineer teams, allowing installations, testing and commissioning to be completed in a phased manner as each room became available.
Throughout the project, Pacific adapted to changing site conditions, including M&E modifications and global supply chain challenges. By working closely with project partners and leveraging strong supplier relationships, alternative equipment was sourced where necessary without compromising UCL’s specifications or the overall programme.
Results
The Marshgate Building AV fit-out was successfully delivered on time and to UCL’s rigorous standards, providing a future-ready learning environment that supports teaching, collaboration and research across 66 spaces.
Following completion, Pacific delivered a comprehensive three-day training programme for UCL’s AV technicians and end users, alongside detailed operation and maintenance manuals and room-specific user guides.
Since completing this landmark project, Pacific has continued to support UCL with additional AV installations across its campuses, reinforcing a strong and ongoing partnership with the university.
Client Testimonial
“UCL East represents a huge real Estate Investment for UCL, and Marshgate is one of the largest teaching, practice, laboratory, and mixed-use buildings we have, and it represents a different way of working at UCL. I was working on this project for over five years since joining UCL in 2019, so Marshgate had to be a successful project, delivered in good time to an excellent standard. As the AV community knows, the Covid Pandemic had a huge impact on manufacturing and the availability of hardware globally and the UCL East project was impacted by these delays. From Pacific being appointed to the project, they immediately started working with us, as quickly as possible to mitigate these delays and find alternative equipment where required against a changing picture of global availability. The account management and ordering were progressed as quickly as possible, and throughout the process Pacific were flexible, communicative, and helpful with offering alternatives, based on system designs and functionality, to ensure functional requirements were met.
“During installation, in a building of this size, with 32 teaching spaces, around 40+ meeting rooms, plus a variety of lab and departmentally focused spaces to deliver, Pacific’s installation team remained calm, worked flexibility and were communicative throughout the three plus month installation window. As a delivery focused client, what I really appreciated was – if for some reason Pacific’s team could not progress work as planned in one space, they would proactively move to another room to carry on working and communicate clearly, helpfully, and percipiently to allow issues to be resolved so that no time on site was lost.
The installation project manager was on site frequently and between the account manager and the project manager, plans would be regularly updated and any blockers fed back with suggestions for resolution. We even had to re-design the AV provision for a lab space, due to user requirements changing in July and deliver this for September teaching! When some spaces inevitably hit issues, close to project deadlines, as can happen on a large complex site, Pacific responded by sending additional people to site and ensuring the job was completed in time.
Programming for spaces was designed based on UCL existing code, and to communicated functionality and requirements. Small tweaks and changes were not seen as a problem, and the more unusual code requirements were well designed, delivered in a collaborative fashion on site, and if end users made additional requests these were met with a helpful, understanding and flexible attitude. Nothing was too much trouble to ensure code was delivered within UCL’s standards, adapted to meet different room and user requirements, and delivered as fully functional for teaching in September.
Overall, Pacific were a huge part of delivering the Marshgate project at UCL and throughout some inevitably stressful times to meet the looming deadline of building opening, occupation and start of teaching, Pacific always worked as collaborative partners and were as focused as me, their client on ensuring all rooms were delivered within project deadlines, delivered as “right first time”, and that overall the project was delivered to deadline, to requirements and was a huge success.”
— Sheila Egan, ISD Customer Operations, UCL