Focusing on the key themes of arts, social enterprise, community support / development and pathways to employment, the organisation has moved from being predominately a provider of hostels for homeless people to be at the cutting edge of tackling social disadvantage through social enterprise and innovation.
Three of the Novas Scarman Group's four CUCs are located in London, but it is the 170,000sq.ft, Grade II listed converted warehouse in Liverpool, which grabbed the headlines on its opening in the summer of 2008.
"Novas Scarman was adamant that induction loops were to be used for the assistive listening facilities," says Karl Formstone of Stage Electrics, who managed the installation.
"Because the charity's whole philosophy is about inclusion, they didn't want anyone to be easily identifiable as having a disability, so a loop system was the obvious choice. Handing out the individual units required for use with an infra red system immediately makes a user identifiable, whereas the user's normal hearing aid is all that's required to benefit from induction loops."
Together with Stage Electrics colleagues Rob Beamer and Peter Coleman, Formstone worked closely with engineers at Ampetronic, who conducted site visits and designed the loop systems for the four areas at CUC North West - the Wake Theatre, Venue 2, Cinema and Bird Theatre.
The Wake Theatre and Venue 2 installations were particularly challenging as, not only are the spaces adjacent to each other, but an electrical substation is located in Venue 2.
"Spill was a consideration due to the close proximity of the rooms, but the substation provided an even bigger challenge because it is a massive induction device - with the consequent problems of interference to the induction loop system," says Formstone.
Matters were complicated further by the Wake Theatre featuring retractable bleacher seating and the concrete floor having been laid before installation of the induction loop could be undertaken.
To combat potential spill and interference from the substation, Venue 2 had a twin-loop, low spill array installed, powered by two ILD1000G loop amplifiers with an SP5 phase shift metal loss corrector, while the Wake Theatre had six loops installed, formatted as three low-spill arrays, each powered by an ILD500 with an SP5 - one on the main floor of the space, one within the retractable seating and the third in the floor beneath it for when the seating is retracted.
(Jim Evans)
