Office 2000 won the Experience Centre Project category of the Inavate APAC Awards 2024 with The Beyonders Centre, India project! Explore the installation in detail.

Office 2000 recently inaugurated its experience centre named The Beyonders Centre. Situated in the heart of Chennai, The Beyonders Centre serves as a hub where end users and prospective clients can envision the ideal workspace. It sits within an extension of Office 2000’s existing space, which has undergone a complete renovation to make way for the experience centre.

Prabha Lakshmi, chief executive officer of Office 2000, shares the integrator’s aspirations for The Beyonders Centre: “Our rationale behind opening this experience centre is to cultivate a brandagnostic experience for all end users. If end users were to visit an experience centre from a specific brand, they will be limited to seeing offerings from just one brand. We aspire to go beyond these limitations by showcasing and installing a wide range of brands, providing clients with a more holistic experience.”

She elaborates: “By creating a proofing centre, end users can witness how different products operate within the ideal office environment. By doing this, we can also identify suitable products before presenting them to our clients, as well as facilitate internal team training for the physical installation of products.”

Given Office 2000’s dedication to its ethos of brand neutrality, The Beyonders Centre aims to be a space that evolves with the ever-changing landscape of AV technology. Thilipan Krishnan, vice president, strategic business development at Office 2000, shares the thought process during the conceptualisation and ideation stage: “While designing this centre, we kept in mind the fact that technology and end user demands evolve daily. We designed the centre in such a way that it is adaptable to these changes.”

He continues: “For instance, if we install a product today and a new one launches tomorrow, our centre is equipped to seamlessly incorporate the latest offerings. This flexibility allows us to accommodate any product and conduct proof-ofconcept demonstrations easily. Essentially, our backend system is designed to support this adaptability. You can swap out hardware at any point, but the centre will continue to operate and maintain its functionality.”

Products deployed at The Beyonders Centre are strategically cycled to align with emerging trends in workplace technology. Each product undergoes rotation every few months, facilitating the integration of the latest tech advancements into the centre’s offerings. Given that the experience centre is intended to be frequented by end users seeking inspiration for the ideal workplace, Office 2000 devised several zones for visitors to walk through and explore the potential of AV. Krishnan elucidates: “We designed key must-have spaces, like meeting rooms, large boardrooms, command centres as well as huddle spaces, as our clients typically request for these.”

Multi-zonal experience

Visitors who step into The Beyonders Centre are first greeted with a Microsoft Teams Room (MTR) room setup. With an emphasis on spatial audio and clear visuals, Office 2000 chose to deploy products that would enhance the collaborative experience in meeting spaces. In terms of AV in the MTR room setup, Office 2000 installed a Jabra PanaCast 50 bar featuring a 180-degree built-in camera, array microphone, and speakers.

Krishnan adds: “To complement this, we decided to go with a MTC 105-in display that has a 21:9 aspect ratio, instead of the typical 16:9 aspect ratio. This is so that we can maintain a wide-angle display that is mainly for signature room concepts, such as the MTR room setup.”

On the audio side of things, QSC speakers have been installed to demonstrate the potential of spatial audio alongside a Sennheiser TeamConnect ceiling microphone that has been custom-made for Office 2000. The Sennheiser TeamConnect ceiling microphones were strategically chosen to illustrate the brand’s TruVoicelift technology.

Krishnan explains: “We wanted to showcase the TruVoicelift technology to show how when a person sitting under the ceiling microphone speaks, the audio is reinforced for those seated far away. The participants below the speakers will hear the amplified audio, while those closer to the speaker will hear the live voice. Similarly, when the person at the far end speaks, the person closest to the display will hear the audio through the speakers, with the relevant microphones and speakers enabled.”

Below the display screen, a PanaCast 50 sound bar from Jabra is used while a Nureva sound bar, with built-in microphones and speakers, sits on top of the display. Krishnan explains the provision of two sound bars: “We chose to deploy a few products across brands to showcase our product portfolio and how different products will lead to different meeting outcomes. This allows end users to make their own informed decisions based on what they’ve experienced during the product demonstration.”

Moreover, Office 2000 partnered with Mindstec Distribution to integrate smart furniture into the MTR room setup as the integrator ventures into offering smart furniture as an option for end users to consider incorporating into their meeting spaces. For visitors who prefer having smaller-sized meeting spaces, a more compact MTR room setup has been designed to showcase the scalability of certain products used in the meeting space.

Krishnan says: “With respect to compact spaces, end users can bring their own devices to plug in and start the conferencing on their own. However, these huddle spaces are also equipped with MTR devices which end users can utilise as well.”

To facilitate room booking, Office 2000 installed remote control and room scheduling systems using digital signage display devices by PADS4, as well as 15-in rod-powered digital signages from Allsee.

In the executive cabin — designed for C-suite individuals — sits a Neat Board 65, which functions as the videoconferencing system for the space. Krishnan shares: “We're planning to incorporate a personalised desktop videoconferencing device, either from Neat or another reputable OEM like Cisco. This device will provide executives with the option for personalised calls directly from their desk.”

For team meetings in the executive cabin, Office 2000 designed a seating area opposite the executive desk, where a four-member team can comfortably convene. Krishnan says: “The wide-angle camera of the Neat Board 65 ensures that the entire meeting space is captured, offering a viewing angle of up to 170-degrees. This setup allows executives to join calls from anywhere within the room, so they can easily walk around while having a meeting.”

Creating first impressions

To showcase the integrator’s expertise in creating immersive experiences, a projection mapping zone was designed and created for visitors to walk through. For this, Panasonic ultra-short throw projectors were installed. Krishnan shares the thought process: “We wanted to have this zone to create a ‘wow’ effect for visitors at The Beyonders Centre. Usually, for experience centres, there is still a demand for projection mapping as end users are interested in displaying their brand identity and corporate logos in engaging ways. Hence, we wanted to showcase our capabilities in creating such visuals with projection mapping.”

Maintaining an aesthetically pleasing space was also of utmost importance for Office 2000, and having a centralised control system from Q-SYS ensured a clutter-free experience for visitors. Krishnan comments: “All devices are managed from a single 42U rack. This rack serves a dual purpose, housing all equipment while also serving as a display to showcase the neat cabling and infrastructure we deliver. End users have the flexibility to control the system using iPads or dedicated touch panels.”

To create a pleasant ambience throughout the centre, Office 2000 decided to install background music playing in workspaces, town halls, and the cafeteria. Krishnan details: “We used pendant speakers from SoundTube and made it such that mild background music plays continuously throughout the centre. What is interesting is that there is also a ducking feature that is mainly used for emergency purposes. When there is an emergency alert, the volume of the background music will reduce, allowing the emergency alert to be heard.”

The best of the best

As an integrator working on its own experience centre, how did Office 2000 ensure that The Beyonders Centre stays true to the high standards it aims to provide its clients? Lakshmi candidly shares: “We are here to solve the challenges of our client, so we cannot have challenges for ourselves. As such, we made sure to manage the centre as flawlessly as possible right from the beginning of the project. Since we envisioned the space to be more flexible, we did not create any false ceiling spaces. Instead, we preserved the original ceiling and routed all cables through open trunks, ensuring easy replacement with new technology upgrades whenever necessary.”

While Office 2000 did not encounter significant challenges, there were still important considerations that the integrator had to address. Lakshmi elaborates: “Since we have the flexibility to incorporate various equipment to make the centre functional, this also meant that it was necessary to be meticulous about the design work regarding the selection of cables, transmission signals, and connectors. Though not challenging per se, this required very thorough planning from the ground up.”

She notes: “The lighting fixtures, however, did pose a challenge for us. Without the help of a lighting consultant, we had to resort to trial and error methods to achieve the desired lighting ambiance.”

Another pivotal feature of The Beyonders Centre is the integration of a virtual walkthrough tour of the entire setup, which is captured and recorded by QSC PTZ cameras all around the experience centre. Prashant Singh Bishnoi, partner technology strategist at Microsoft, remarks: “The virtual tour was awesome and well-presented. We are hopeful that this immersive experience will compel our customers to go for for native Teams Rooms solutions in their meeting rooms.”

Peter Garner, director, solution sales, Asia & ANZ at Microsoft, added: “It was a privilege to be part of the first virtual tour. If that is already the quality of the demonstration, then it is sure to be a big success with customers!”

Looking towards the future of the experience centre, Lakshmi concludes: “We've already welcomed several clients to the centre, and our goal is to maximise client engagement within the next two months. We also aim to establish this facility as a development centre as we work towards developing applications and other services to further enhance our offerings.”