New Malta Parliament

1. General Project Info

Dates: 2012 – 2015

Location: Valetta, Malta

End User: Parliament of Malta

Customer: GHRC (Grand Harbour Regeneration Corporation)

Telmaco’s contract: Novated Subcontractor for Audiovisual

Engineer: Lend Lease

Architect: RPBW (Renzo Piano Building Workshop)

Specialist Consultants: Arup, United Kingdom

1.1 End User Info

The Parliament of Malta is the constitutional legislative body in Malta, located in Valletta. The parliament is unicameral, with a democratically elected House of Representatives and the President of Malta. By Constitutional law, all government ministers, including the Prime Minister, must be members of the House of Representatives. It currently has 69 seats.

1.2 Overall Project Scope

During 2010, the Maltese Government commenced the development of the area known as City Gate in Valletta, Malta, which development reflects the schematic designs of the internationally-recognised architect Renzo Piano. As a result of the development, the City Gate area would be replaced by, inter alia: two interconnecting buildings consisting of the Parliament Building; the historical site which will be transformed into the Open-Air Theatre; and the landscaping of public areas.

Government has, entered into an agreement with GHRC pursuant to which Government engaged GHRC to, inter alia, construct and develop the City Gate area in accordance with agreed timelines and specifications;, engaged GHRC to construct and develop the City Gate area. GHRC is a public limited liability company set up in August 2007 as a government entity under the Ministry for Infrastructure, Transport and Communication. GHRC’s main activity is the promotion of the implementation of selected projects for the Grand Harbour area in Malta. The New Parliament of Malta building covers 23.000 m2 floor area in three levels and is built out of local Limestone and Steel with an overall budget of € 90.000.000.

1.3 Telmaco’s Scope in Brief

Design, Supply, Installation, Commissioning and Support of state of the art Audiovisual Systems for the new parliament of Malta.

2. Detailed Project Info

Telmaco S.A was awarded the contract for the Design, Supply and Installation of the Audio Visual Equipment for the New Maltese Parliament further to an International Tender. This prestigious project was expected to set a new benchmark for the execution of construction, installation and finishing works in Malta as per the mission statement.

The project was a high profile project which was made possible through the international collaboration of top consultants and contractors from various countries all working together to achieve a mutual objective. The project’s vision was given by world renowned architect Renzo Piano whilst Bovis Lend Lease ensured that the project was managed and delivered as per the high expectations. ARUP were not only the MEP consultants but were also responsible for the Room Acoustics and the Audio Visual systems. Telmaco collaborated with all the parties involved allowing for the delivery of the Audio Visual Systems on time and budget, and as per the demanding project standards. Telmaco experience in similar large construction project proved invaluable for interfacing with the MEP and finishing contractors whilst working closely with the consultants. The project was broken down into two main phases:

2.1 Design Phase

Telmaco prepared all the required design works for the implementation of the Audio Visual systems. This was a challenging time period as Telmaco worked with the project requirements as defined by ARUP while liaising with the end-user, House of Representatives (HOR), ensuring that the systems would deliver all the required functionalities. A very demanding aspect of this phase was the preparation of drawings and samples for all the bespoke AV items to be integrated into the building. Telmaco successfully designed and fabricated these items to the rigid and challenging standards of Renzo Piano Building Workshop.

2.2 Installation & Integration Phase

Coordination is the A and Z in undertaking installation works in such complex projects. Telmaco’s implementation team ensured from a very early stage the necessary requirements for our works to proceed were documented and distributed to all the interfacing contractors allowing for our installations to move forward under a very tight time schedule. Telmaco’s installation team built good relationships with everyone involved onsite resulting in an excellent quality of AV equipment installations. The systems integration phase required that all our partner vendor’s share information and collaborate in order to have correct intersystem communications and operability, building on the preparation during the design phase. Telmaco has multivendor management experience, an important trait, to deliver such projects. Bringing everything to life was not a simple task, calling for custom software to be made meet the defined functionalities. Telmaco spent extensive time onsite with the end-user further to the completion of the project, for training and to facilitate the transfer period from the old building.

3. The Scope

The Audio Visual systems include the following system which are covering the Main Chamber, three Committee Rooms, two Meeting Rooms, Offices and Public Spaces.

3.1 Cable Network: The cable network is comprising of 32 km Cat6a, 12 km HD-SDI, 9 km fiber, 12 km audio cables with extensive network of interconnection boxes for internal and Outside Broadcast interconnection. In sensitive locations all connection panels were made of stainless steel.

3.2 Congress System: The Congress System is based on a DIS DCS 6000 system at its core and custom made stainless steel delegates units and custom made speakers all designed by RPBW. The amplification of the sound is done via extensive DSP processing (via Biamp Audio) in order to achieve best possible result. K Array speakers cover gallery and visitors area. There is also a provision for interpretation to cover sessions with guests from the European Institutions or other similar cases. The committee rooms are installed with a mobile congress systems with similar capabilities to the main chamber.

3.3 Video Production System: An advanced video production system based on HD-SDI Panasonic Robotic cameras has been deployed. The system is linked to the conference system via the custom made control system offering:

• Automatic switching depending on the activation of the microphone
• Broadcast quality video feeds
• Automatic graphic insertion of graphics as shown on this example with the overlay of the Speaker Name and the Topic of discussion
• Manual operation through a Panasonic Vision Mixer in case is required for special sessions.

3.4 Audio Relay System: The Audio Relay is transmitted via Cobranet to the whole building so that the MPs or staff can listen to the sessions in most of the rooms of the building. This is based on Biamp Audia technology and is linked to the congress system and various ambient microphones.

3.5 Video Distribution System: All the video signals from all rooms are centrally connected to a larger router from Grass Valley’s NVISION 8500. The system allows the operation of all rooms from a single control room.

3.6 Recording and Streaming: The recording and streaming systems is using the Arbor Media’s Logdepot for both video and audio of all plenary and committee sessions. The system provides facilities for transcribing and two systems, one for in house browsing of av material by MPs and staff and one, based on Connected Views, which allows external users to browse through the web and also follow the sessions live. The beauty of the system is that it is coupled with the conference system and it is recorded with the all the metadata available from it, i.e. Speaker, time and topic discussed.

All the metadata are available as search elements to both internal and external users. This is available to the public from http://conference.connectedviews.com/Default.aspx?i=malta-parliament

3.7 Video Conference: One of the committee room is equipped with Video Conference system linked to all the AV equipment. Also several mobile units have been deployed to be used in meeting rooms and offices. The Cisco codecs are integrated in the LAN of the Parliament and are deployed with the necessary infrastructure to allow for multi participant calls and secure connections from the internet or the ISDN world.

3.8 Video Projection: All the committee rooms have been equipped with Barco’s PFWU 51B projectors and Dnp’s Supernova projections screens to allow operation with well lit room.

3.9 Video Information Distribution: A building wide IPTV system was deployed based on Exterity System which provided to a pool of TV Sets scattered around the building with Satellite and Terrestrial TV Channels but also video feeds from the main chambers and committee rooms and Information Channels geared through Digital Signage players providing agenda of the day as planned in the central exchange server of the parliament.

3.10 Voice Evacuation: A Voice Evacuation based on Bosch Praesideo which linked to the Audio Show Relay is taking care of any emergency announcements in all areas.

3.11 Machine Rooms: Three machine rooms are used located in different parts of the building.

3.12 Control System: All rooms are equipped with touch panel automation system based on CUE which not only allow the classical control of the AV equipment but providing a lot of the custom made automation functions. The control system is connected and communicating with the following systems:

• Congress System including the SQL Server
• Custom Privacy Button for the Chamber
• Custom Displays for Timing, for Privacy and for Stop Session Indication
• Division Bell Button
• Audio Show Relay System
• Voice Evacuation System
• Central Video Router
• Video Overlay System