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Audio Design |
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“The most common complaint about court environments is that people cannot hear (or understand) what is going on. We really must address this practical problem.”
Justice Michael Kirby
High Court of Australia
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The comment of Justice Kirby is wholly acknowledged by ICE Design and reflects a core focus of our consulting business. In all our work, we ensure the delivery of sound reinforcement and in-court technology systems that overcome these common yet unacceptable shortcomings of our courtrooms.
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The ICE™ design process is holistic. It analyses each individual courtroom environment and usage to provide judicial clients with a comprehensive blueprint for all current and future technology needs.
A major foundation of our approach is the recognition of the interdependencies of the courtroom media components, as well as their interactions with the room environment. We regard both the in-court and inter-courtroom technologies as a single
system, providing a “whole of building” foundation.
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The courtroom is akin to “theatre in the round”, with multiple participants in an environment that is very often less than ideal. The combination of multiple talker and listener areas, differences in speaking styles and languages, remote participants, architectural and heritage constraints, room acoustics and background noise present significant challenges for the audio designer.
The design challenge becomes even more difficult when coupled with the technology issues imposed by e-courts, digital recording and transcription, media distribution systems and the all important role of support.
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All too often, these challenges are overlooked. The sentiments of Justice Kirby, quoted above, are shared by many other frustrated court users across Australia, and yet the poor incumbent conditions of many our courtrooms continue to be tolerated unnecessarily.
ICE Design’s completed projects consistently demonstrate that the challenges of non-ideal conditions can be successfully accommodated; the outcome is measurably higher speech intelligibility and ease of listening for participants compared with conventional installations.
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