March 2010

The new Darwin Centre is the most significant expansion at the Natural History Museum since it moved to South Kensington in 1881. 

The Attenborough Studio is part of the brand new Darwin Centre, which opened to the public in September.  From an architectural point of view, the building is spectacular as it houses a giant cocoon made from concrete, steel and glass.  Designed by C F Møller Architects of Denmark, this 8 story architectural achievement, took around 25 months and 280 people to build.  It is home to the Natural History Museum’s collections of specimens as well as displays and interactive activities for the general public.

The Attenborough Studio is a dramatic new public space and a state-of-the-art communication centre where innovation technology, Museum specimens, live animals, spectacular natural history film footage and Museum scientists come together to create an inspiring programme of free daily educational films and live events for schools, educational establishments and the general public.

The Natural History Museum has an amazing science and learning department and the organisation had an ambitious and detailed vision to bring and share their accumulated knowledge with the general public.

IVC Media was the systems integrator and developer which helped bring the Natural History Museum’s exciting vision to life following their comprehensive brief.  To achieve the level of audience participation required and to incorporate all the Natural History Museum’s innovative ideas, from a technology and engineering point of view the Attenborough Studio has become something quite unique:  a totally automated, sophisticated hybrid broadcast studio and AV presentation space, which can be operated by a technical crew that allows the general public to quite literally ‘engage’ with scientists at work 363 days of the year.

It has been designed to create the ultimate visual experience and exciting events, spectacular shows and fascinating films made by the BBC Natural History Unit, about all aspects of life on Earth and scientific discovery are part of studio sessions which take place during the week, weekends and some evenings.  There are three films edited and developed by the Natural History Museum that use footage by the BBC’s Natural History Unit films: David Attenborough: Life on Camera, which is a captivating documentary celebrating Attenborough’s achievements with clips from his many BBC Series; Nature through the Lens, a documentary marking key breakthroughs in wildlife film-making, featuring stunning imagery and Wildscapes, a spectacular multi-screen film showing amazing high-definition footage of three different habitats in the ocean, African plains and the Arctic and Antarctic.

Studio sessions are open to everyone and there are some specifically designed only for school groups.

Working alongside the Museum specialists and with key consultants and manufacturers including: Cultural Innovations, Panasonic, Medialon, Bose, Adder, Dell, Haivision, Paradigm and an architectural and product design practice Pentagram, IVC Media has helped develop a unique facility which is essentially a broadcast studio and presentation suite in one enabling the 350 scientists working within the Darwin Centre research labs to present their work to the general public for the first time.

Bryan Edwards, technical sales consultant, IVC Media comments:  “Our brief was to design a flexible, future-proofed studio capable of broadcasting up to five channels of content at any time and to be manned by a small, technical crew.  The capacity to repurpose content was important as well as creating an interactive environment which would stand up to the rigours of the general public’s daily use.”

“Flexibility was important,” continues Edwards.  “We needed to provide multi-media technologies to link the studio audience to locations across the world, watch scientists doing their daily work in their laboratories, provide the provision to explore behind the scenes at the museum using video links to areas not normally open to the public – like the famous tank room which is home to the giant squid or into the collection of precious gems, in addition to providing an area where topical science issues could be discussed with eminent guest speakers.

“Robust-ness and safety were also important as the studio will be used by the general public and schools and other educational establishments on a daily basis,” explains Edwards.  “The space that has been created is a semi-circular lecture theatre.  Plastic seats with curved edges provide durable and safe seating.  However, it is the integration of leading edge technology that really sets this project apart.”   

IVC’s lead designer, André Ingram explains: “Our role was to work with best-of-breed manufacturers to create a 3G (full HD) compliant system that allows all forms of connectivity so any content can be transmitted both in and out of the space. 

“We have developed a remotely controlled outside broadcast trolley to allow true broadcast quality to be transmitted and received throughout the entire Natural History Museum,” continues Ingram.  “In this way, the audience in the Attenborough studio can interact with scientists at work anywhere in the building, potentially bringing them news of the very latest discoveries in real-time.  A four channel audio facility enables program sound and talk back to be sent and received so scientists can even answer live questions from the audience. 

“As part of the installation we also brought in an Osprey High-Definition (HD) Streaming PC which enables content to be streamed over the internet, now potentially allowing the Natural History Museum’s material to be viewed anywhere in the world.  This will be particularly useful for inter-educational establishments to share scientific knowledge,” continues Ingram.

The broadcast equipment in the Attenborough studio consists of five HD cameras.  Six wired-up positions allow the Panasonic remotely controlled cameras to cover the studio so all presentation angles can be filmed.

Content is presented on five full sized HD digital screens positioned around the room, incorporating 5.1 surround sound.  Content can be a single film for example, or two additional projectors allow ambient material to be shown at the same time as the main film on different screens alongside a live presenter. 

A mixture of live presentations, film and legacy material make up the content for the Attenborough Studio, which is generally scheduled three months in advance.  IVC worked with Medialon to create a scheduling system to allow programmes to be planned ahead of time and provide the flexibility to alter the schedule, last minute and as required by the -technical crew.  Live events can even be recorded and stored at HD and later streamed out or put on the museum web site for VOD (video on demand). The large library of legacy film can be up-scaled to high definition and shown on any or all screens.

Five channels of Alcorn McBride Binloop allows playback of synchronised HD content to any or all of the large display screens.  A 32 by 32 Extron HDSDI router provides the core switching, controlled by multiple Medialon Touch screen interfaces or fully automated on the time based schedule.  Audio requirements of this acoustically challenging space have been met by use of an Audia Biflex DSP system and a Bose DSP88 to provide Dolby decoding and room equalisation.  In the operator control room, vision mixing is on a Pansonic HD mixer and audio on a Yamaha LS 9-32 fully loaded to supply 48 inputs and 32 outputs.

The back room has been created for ease of use by the technical crew.  “It was essential to create a simple GUI with a button led interface,” explains Ingram  “As the Natural History Museum is so large – it takes around seven minutes to walk from one side of the building to the other - four CCTV cameras have been installed to stream views of the back room through to the support desk so any technical issue can be resolved remotely, in a short a time as possible.”

“The user experience that has been created in the Attenborough Studio is quiet extraordinary,” explains Edwards.  “The project has been a triumph of engineering and technology coming together to create a centre which sets the standards for the future practice of public education and engagement with science.”

According to the Natural History Museum: “The opening of the Darwin Centre represents the future for the Natural History Museum as a world leader in researching the burning issues facing humans and the natural world.  The Darwin Centre unleashes the Natural History Museum’s life as a major science infrastructure into the public arena, offering a voice of authority on the natural world and inspiring better care of our planet.”

Booking required for school groups, evening events and some weekend Nature Live talks.