ETC Seamlessly Supports Baird Center’s Epic Expansion

Milwaukee’s Baird Center finished an epic expansion this spring and ETC’s architectural controls systems were at the heart of it. The changes expanded the expo hall to 300,000 contiguous square feet and added 100,000 sq. ft. of new ballroom and meeting space, including a spectacular fourth floor rooftop ballroom. All total, the Baird Center doubled to more than 1.3 million square feet and achieved a LEED Silver rating doing it. They did all this with an ETC control system designed  by Enterprise Lighting & Control and MainStage acting as integrator on the gargantuan project.

Working from the engineering requirements of IBC Engineering for an adaptable and energy-efficient space, Bryan Palmer, Manager of Controls and Lighting applications for Enterprise designed a system built around ETC’s Unison Paradigm. Paradigm’s combination of versatile sensors and switches and a flexible and expandable infrastructure meant the system could handle anything the shape-shifting spaces needed. Plus, Paradigm’s customizable software interface meant interaction and controls could be seamless and intuitive for users.

But Palmer also knew that getting to that seamless finish would require a lot of coordination with the installers, which is why he was grateful to have MainStage as integrator.

“This project was unique because even though it didn’t sell through the integrator, we knew we would need one to be involved for a project of this scope. We worked with MainStage based on their existing relationship with other facilities attached to the venue.” says Palmer.

“With so many different contractors involved, it was our responsibility to make sure everyone was working together as one to pull this off,” adds Tripp Oliver, Director of Projects at MainStage. “Plus the technical expertise of my team Angela Menoyo and Ayden Whitney, smoothed out any bumps in the road.”

BREAK IT UP, TIE IT TOGETHER

From the start, the Baird Center was designed to be very flexible. Every floor has pre-function and back of house spaces. Street level has that as well as lounge space and some vendor spaces. Then there are meeting spaces on both the street level and second floor. All of the meeting rooms are able to be divided or joined into smaller or larger spaces. Existing exhibition halls are joined by an additional 110,000+ square feet from Hall E. All exhibition halls can be joined together into one large space or broken up into smaller configurations.

The design broke the building into quadrants with independent systems that all then tied back to a central control point using streaming ACN to communicate between everything. Paradigm  communicates with the Center’s A/V and software to offer appropriate and specific lighting for each space no matter how they are configured.

“Each floor functions pretty much independently, but they're all tied together,” says Tripp. “That was very helpful for us laying control needs out.”

Wall-mounted Paradigm Touchscreens control lighting in the exhibit halls, but the power of Paradigm is evident in the central Virtual Touchscreen (VTS), which gives users absolute granular control from a single pane of glass in the control room. “The VTS gives them the ability to select individual lights in the exhibit hall, dim them  and set levels for events. It’s got multi-level control, quadrant control of each level, and then individual fixture control as well,” shares Palmer. “It gives them a lot of flexibility and was really exciting for the exhibit group.”

Paradigm’s flexibility extended even to hardware. The engineering requirements called for vacancy sensors throughout the space. But once they were in the build phase, the owner decided they needed to be occupancy sensors.

“We were able to re-program all the sensors to behave differently quickly, where that could have been troublesome if it wasn't for the flexibility of the Paradigm system,” says Tripp.

More changes occurred as the team realized just how much capability ETC could give them. The exhibit halls are comprised of 40 control zones, with over 400 fixtures that are controlled via 0-10V line voltage dimming. Originally, they just wanted to dim each quadrant, but after the install had started they decided they wanted to be able to dim every fixture. This could have been a nightmare, easily requiring miles more wiring and many, many more relay panels. But with ETC’s Unison Foundry Relay Pack with the dual-zone option, things were much simpler. Foundry integrates easily with Paradigm controls, and because Foundry uses DMX for control, there were minimal control wires to run, which in turn required fewer relay panels, all of which kept costs and space requirements down.

“Relay panels take up a lot of space. Wire takes up a lot of space. A thousand pieces of wire running through that ceiling would have been a lot of conduit, a lot of copper. With Foundry and Paradigm that extra material cost  was avoided,” says Tripp.

TOUCHSCREEN AND CONTROL

Tripp and MainStage have provided equipment and integration for many similarly-sized (and larger) convention centers before, and leveraged their experience to help guarantee this project’s success. With all this experience, their programmer team of Steven Lunsford  and Angela Menoyo got to work customizing all the user Touchscreens. Each Touchscreen has visual layouts of where the walls can go, so you can see what the layouts will look like, what presets will look like in each space, and of course individual fixture control.

Paradigm Touchscreens also offer complete color control for the space, communicating seamlessly with ETC’s Unison Mosaic system for special color events. Dedicated presets allow users to set and change colors for the building’s exterior lighting with presets to celebrate a Milwaukee sports team win and allow customization for a specific client. But it was the ballroom that took things to the next level.

“The ballroom has a pretty unique feature,” explains Tripp. “It has a special light sculpture hanging from the ceiling with linear color changing fixtures in it. You can play a show across the entire ballroom space and it looks amazing.” But thanks to some special programming with ETC’s Mosaic system, you can get the same show playing in the smaller space when the airwalls are up and the ballroom is broken into individual sections. MainStage tied Paradigm and Mosaic with the AV company’s system to determine room structure. Then they re-programmed the show to play at the same intended “speed” along the sculpture even though it was a smaller version of the piece. MainStage also integrated two uniquely-programmed Response DMX Gateways to allow the venue to control this sculpture seamlessly via their RoadHog 4-21 console during productions.

“It’s a complex bit of programming, but Paradigm and Mosaic make it happen, and it’s seamless on the user side,” says Tripp.

“The integration of the ETC controls system  with the AV system and  building management systems provides a cohesive control package that is  invaluable for the facility,” adds Palmer. “This system is comprehensive with a remarkable end result that is a huge win for everyone involved in making it happen .”

Tripp couldn’t agree more. “It was great to be given the opportunity to work  alongside the local contractors and trades to see it come together. We were all given a good foundation and great support from ETC.”