SAE Sydney campus relocates – new facility requires full fit-out

SAE Creative Media Institute was established in Australia in 1976 and is now one of the world’s leading educators in creative media. With 53 campuses in 27 countries, there are six SAE campuses located around Australia. Earlier this year the Sydney campus was relocated to Chippendale, and as part of the move The P.A. People provided AV support for the new fitout.

Located at 39 Regent Street, in the inner-city creative and cultural hub of Chippendale and next to Central Station, the $12 million seven-story campus has been purpose-designed to provide a modern and technically interactive teaching and learning space where students can master their creative skills. Features include a rooftop recreational space for students to relax and network while enjoying 360-degree skyline views across the city.

General Manager of SAE Australia, Lee Aitken, said the new campus was built to accommodate a growing demand for creative media programs in disciplines such as audio, film, animation, games, design and web/mobile. “The new campus has been fitted out with the best facilities and industry-standard equipment to support hands-on learning in small class environments,” said Aitken.

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The new premises comprise a refurbished seven-story building and required a total fitout of studios, classrooms, theatre, smaller meeting rooms and offices.

The main installation consisted of the cabling infrastructure for all studios, live rooms and teaching spaces, including all audio connections such as mic level and line level and speaker ties as well as video connections such as HDMI, SDI and Fibre ties. The P.A. People team custom built, engraved and terminated panels for each room, which detailed all Neutrik connectors.

The visual components of the system included projection screens situated in the training rooms, while seminar rooms were fitted with LCD screens. A small AMX touch panel was installed in the theatre to control projection and lighting. A lighting patch panel was also installed in their largest live space (the ‘wonder room’) for stage lighting requirements.

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“Innovative technologies were employed to resolve acoustically sensitive areas from the building’s concrete structure to create studios with a high level of acoustic comfort. The aesthetics were further enhanced by the introduction of LED feature lighting. These rooms also feature high performance glazing, floating floor systems and have been arranged in a way the corridors become a multi-purpose buffer space between adjacent doors.”

Andrew Holmes, Phillips Smith Conwell, project director and principal architect

While SAE supplied and installed their own equipment, the key role for The P.A. People was to ensure the infrastructure in the campus was functional. The P.A. People partnered with Farindon Constructions to complete the project & worked closely with Design Stage Consultancy.

“DesignStage have been involved in several SAE relocations and upgrades to date including Perth, Sydney and San Francisco. In all cases the brief was principally to provide very high quality, comprehensive and flexible cabling infrastructure for the live rooms, studios, labs, production and teaching spaces. In this case we also included AV designs for most of the teaching spaces. Consistency between venues was an important consideration for SAE as well as comprehensive and intuitive labelling for all of the cabling infrastructure. The P.A. People were commissioned to carry out the installation and diligently set about the detailed design of the panels and cabling. Their attention to detail and commitment to this project contributed greatly in delivering a high-quality installation despite a compressed programme.” Phil Viney, Director – DesignStage.

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