Specifications

Learning Spaces Guidelines
Classrooms: 30
be positioned between 1000mm and 1500mm from the wall/board
surface so that the pickup area is biased in favour of the presenter
rather than the audience. These microphones should have
balanced signal cables to minimise the possibility of cable induced
noise and should be phantom powered (48V) by the equipment
within the rack. Suitable microphones are available in white finish
to minimise their visual conspicuity.
Side
Plan
typical ceiling mount
positions for boundary
microphones
board
projector
typical ceiling mount position
for boundary microphones
teaching
station
1000mm
above: illustration of typical positions for boundary microphones
The primary advantage of this microphone solution is that it does
not require the user to understand how to operate any microphone
and is not dependent upon either a rechargeable battery being
charged or non-depleted disposable batteries being present.
Installation of gooseneck microphones on the teaching station
should not be necessary and should be avoided as they encourage
static lecturing styles and potentially cause uneven sound levels if
the lecturer does move in and out of its pickup zone.
It is conceivable that there may be classrooms where microphones
are required but that it is not practicable to install ceiling mounted
boundary microphones. In these circumstances it would be
advisable to install wearable microphones as per large lecture
theatres (see Section 7.06).
In many classrooms there is only sufficient space on the teaching
wall for a single screen or writing board. Previously the solution of
a retractable, pull-down, fabric projection screen in front of a shiny
dry-erase whiteboard had been commonly utilised.
This solution had a number of drawbacks:
Projection surface easily damaged by accidentally being
written on with dry-erase pen
Retraction mechanism easily damaged through over
extension
Downtime of room due to need to regularly replace
damaged screens
In light of this an improved solution was developed and this now
forms the standard specification used for classrooms. The typical
layout of this standard classroom is shown in Appendix 1
If the room size will not permit use of separate surfaces for writing
and projection then a combined function surface should be used. A
semi-matt vitreous enamel board should be used for this purpose
Suitable microphone
models are specified
in Appendix 3:
UCL standardised
equipment list
TASK
Projection/
writing in
classrooms
5.05