Transforming Workspaces: Legrand and Microsoft Set a New Standard for Hybrid Collaboration

Summary

• Innovation in Hybrid Workspaces:
  • Microsoft creates flexible collaboration workspaces beyond software.
  • Aims to enhance both in-room and remote meeting experiences.
• Signature Teams Rooms:
  • Developed new equipment and standards for modern meeting environments.
  • Involves changes to room layout, furniture, audio-visual equipment, and Microsoft Teams.
• Medium Signature Teams Room:
  • Features Middle Atlantic’s Forum Collaboration Suite and Forum Display Stand.
  • Acoustic solutions from Focal Point enhance audio experience.
  • Forum Arc Tables improve collaboration by aligning participants toward the display.
• Surface Hub Room:
  • Chief’s Extra-Large Electric Height Adjustable Floor Support Mount ensures accessibility.
  • Focal Point Acoustic Solutions optimize audio for videoconferencing.
  • Forum Arc Table provides versatile work surfaces.
• Legrand’s Role:
  • Supplied AV infrastructure, building controls, electrical infrastructure, lighting, and acoustics solutions.
  • Worked closely with Microsoft to identify optimal solutions for the spaces.
• Global Impact:
  • Legrand’s global scale supports Microsoft facilities worldwide.
  • Enables easy deployment of Signature Teams Rooms on a large scale.

Challenge

As Microsoft continues to innovate for the hybrid workforce, they are creating a new vision for flexible collaboration workspaces that goes beyond the software. It’s the same challenge everyone in the industry is working to overcome – to provide a value proposition for working at the office. Employers and employees alike want the office experience to be worth the commute. When staff are in the office, they should have a workplace experience that they can’t get from their home office. At the same time, it’s important for those joining remotely to feel the meeting environment has been optimized for them as well.

Microsoft wanted to create a meeting environment that enhanced both the in-room and remote experience. To implement this vision, either for new construction or retrofits, they had to develop new equipment and standards. This involved changes to the room layout, furniture, audio-visual equipment, and Microsoft Teams.

Everything was reimagined, from how the space itself is arranged, to the shape of the furniture, to lighting, and materials choices for the spaces. The end result is a series of Signature Microsoft Teams Rooms that are being deployed across the company to create more meeting spaces that interconnect conferencing and the physical environment. In two of these Microsoft Teams Rooms, Legrand was on hand to supply everything but the display and camera.

Solution 1: Medium Signature Teams Room

In the first room, the Medium Signature Teams Room, Middle Atlantic’s Forum Collaboration Suite takes center stage. The Forum Display Stand is robust enough to support the Jupiter Pana 105, a hefty 105” ultrawide 21:9 aspect ratio display, and it provides ample storage space for AV and IT components. The acoustic display shroud along with acoustic solutions on the wall from Focal Point work together to achieve the best possible audio experience for remote and in-person attendees while also providing a cohesive aesthetic by unifying the AV equipment with the room’s interior design.

Another key component, the Forum Arc Tables, work to re-orient the entire conferencing experience. Rather than people sitting around a table with a display at one end, the arc tables align everyone in the room toward the camera and display for a more equitable and improved collaboration environment where everyone in the meeting is seen and heard.

Chief’s Voyager Cart integrates a Microsoft Surface Hub that can be moved anywhere in the room for complete collaboration flexibility to support a larger group or a quick in-person impromptu brainstorm session. The Voyager Cart’s sleek aesthetic fits with modern office space design and can be installed in portrait or landscape orientation.

Wiremold’s dash Power Towers and a dash Desktop Power Center with configurable modules connect users with power, charging and data. The dash™ line of configurable power solutions offers a new level of customization. Unlike other power solutions, dash expands beyond the standard offering and can be customized at the factory level to meet the specific needs of any commercial environment. For further flexibility, an Evolution Series 8” Recessed Poke-Thru device provides convenient access to power, communications and audio/video services recessed below floor level.

Power to the system is provided by a Middle Atlantic NEXSYS PDU with surge protection. These power systems are designed for the exacting requirements of AV components. 

Solution 2: Surface Hub Room

The second room is the Surface Hub Room. To outfit this focus-sized space, Chief’s Extra-Large Electric Height Adjustable Floor Support Mount ensures the 85” Microsoft Surface Hub display is accessible to all with a 26” range of vertical lift.

One thing returning to the office has shown us is how many rooms that were previously acceptable for conducting meetings no longer meet current audio expectations. The design trend of exposed structure ceilings and open plan furniture has unintentionally created acoustic challenges. Speech legibility must be addressed during Teams calls to create equity between in-person and remote attendees. Focal Point Acoustic Solutions reduce sound reverberation in the room. This optimizes the audio experience for videoconferencing so everyone can be heard while visually unifying the AV equipment with the entirety of the room for a cohesive interior design.

A 38” counter-height Forum Arc Table provides a work surface for three participants who can choose to sit or stand. This also allowed the specifiers to add a seated front row to accommodate up to six people in the room.

Wiremold dash Power Towers supply convenient access to power and charging in a slim, modern design that blends in with the surroundings.

Results:

Legrand was an ideal partner to work with because of the breadth of AV infrastructure, building controls, electrical infrastructure, lighting, and acoustics solutions that they bring to the table. As the sole provider of most of the equipment in these rooms, Legrand representatives worked closely with Microsoft to identify the best solutions for these spaces. Other rooms developed at Microsoft in this project included Da-Lite 21:9 ultrawide projection screens to take full advantage of Teams Front Row functionality.

These rooms represent ideal meeting spaces enhanced for hybrid experiences, and they can be easily deployed at scale around the world with Microsoft and Legrand. Floor-supported display mounting and storage solutions from Chief and Middle Atlantic save significant time across rollouts by eliminating the need for wall inspection and remediation to handle heavy interactive displays.

Along with market-leading products, Legrand offers a truly global scale to support Microsoft facilities around the world, enabling room specifications and availability of products anywhere that Microsoft operates. This partnership and global reach is equally valuable to Microsoft’s customers that are similarly working to specify and mass-deploy Teams Rooms around the world.

Read more about the greater strategy behind Signature Teams Rooms and Legrand at the blog.

Find diagrams, solutions and much more at our Industry Collaboration page for Microsoft.

PRODUCTS USED
Chief Extra-Large Electric Height Adjustable
Floor Support Mount
Chief Voyager Large Manual Height Adjustable AV Cart
Focal Point TruTile Custom Acoustic Wall Panels TruTile
Middle Atlantic Forum Collaboration Suite Arc Tables
Middle Atlantic Forum Collaboration Suite
Display Stand and Shroud
Middle Atlantic NEXSYS 6 Outlet PDU
Wiremold dash Power Tower
Wiremold dash Desktop Power Center
Wiremold 8AT Evolution Poke Thru Device