State-of-the-Art and Future-Oriented Media Technology for Hannover’s Enercity Headquarters

In June 2022, MCI was commissioned by enercity AG to equip the six floors of the new corporate headquarters at the “Glocksee” site with cutting-edge and highly flexible media technology. The new headquarters offers space for 800 employees and, with 20,000 square meters of floor space, is the largest passive house in northern Germany.

The ground floor features, among other things, a light-filled atrium, the company restaurant, and the large conference hall. The main conference area, with a total of 13 conference and meeting rooms, is located on the first floor. The fifth floor houses the executive board’s conference rooms. On floors two to four, numerous smaller meeting rooms as well as networking and team areas have been equipped with media technology.

The company restaurant can be combined with the large conference hall and the atrium for events with up to 1,100 people, allowing for large-scale use. For this purpose, the ground floor was equipped with numerous Crestron ceiling speakers, column speakers from Pan Acoustics, NEC presentation displays in various sizes, a Sennheiser ADN conference system, 24 Sennheiser wireless microphones, and Panasonic PTZ cameras to enable this wide range of applications. For large-format content, the atrium received a 7.8 x 4.4 m LED wall. The conference hall features a 5.4 x 3 m wall, and the restaurant was fitted with a ceiling-mounted video cube.

With the Sennheiser MobileConnect assistive listening system, lectures or presentations can be transmitted in real time via Wi-Fi to mobile devices, enabling audio description, simultaneous translations, and audio for info screens.

In general, the media system is operated via numerous installed 10" touch panels from Crestron.

Consistent playback of visual content and audio signals is possible everywhere when combining conference, dining, or atrium spaces thanks to the presentation components. For additional visual flexibility, there are various mobile units consisting of 86" NEC displays, rolling stands, and Crestron NVX transmission modules, which can be connected to floor boxes in the room. Additional comparable mobile units are distributed throughout the building.

“What makes such a large project so interesting are the complex interconnections of the many systems for the different scenarios on the ground floor,” says Sören Stüwe, project manager at MCI. He adds: “The collaboration with interior designer Marén Dorstewitz and specialist planner Marcel Körbs from IB Hanusch was also cooperative and constructive, making the entire project simply enjoyable.”

The ground floor also includes a health center with various application areas. Here, Pan Acoustics surface-mount speakers, Panasonic and NEC displays with Brightsign media players, as well as 10" Crestron touch panels were installed. In addition, the shop and kitchen areas and a self-contained chill-out room were equipped with media technology and entertainment components, such as a PlayStation.

On the conference floor, there are four small, seven medium, and two large conference rooms. The equipment varies depending on room size and offers flexible usage for meetings, congresses, and presentations with 5 to 100 people. Small rooms feature a 65" NEC display wall-mounted, while medium-sized rooms are equipped with 86" NEC displays on electrically height-adjustable rolling stands. All displays come with a Barco ClickShare BYOD system and a Poly Studio video conferencing system.

The two large conference rooms are equipped with 4K projectors from NEC, active column speakers with Dante modules from Pan Acoustics, Sennheiser TeamConnect Ceiling 2 microphone arrays with automatic speaker tracking for video conferences, the MobileConnect assistive listening system and ADN conference systems from Sennheiser, signal distribution via DigitalMedia matrix and NVX IP modules, which are controlled via 7" and 10" touch panels, and Crestron components for media control.

Ceiling and wall-mounted speakers from Biamp and Crestron provide background music in hallways and open areas.

On floors two to four, there are additional small meeting rooms as well as various networking and team areas. These are equipped with partly mobile 65"–86" NEC displays and BrightSign digital signage players. Larger displays also feature Poly Studio video conferencing systems. Meetings, conferences, or presentations with up to ten people can be held here.

The fifth floor houses the executive board’s conference room, which is equipped similarly to the large conference rooms on the first floor. The adjoining terrace is fitted with weatherproof outdoor speakers from Pan Acoustics, an 86" NEC display, and a rolling stand.

The executive offices received individual media technology equipment with 86" large-format displays for presentations and video conferences. Wireless (via ClickShare) and wired signal transmission from mobile devices is supported. Operation is via a Crestron 10" touch panel on the desk.

Meeting rooms, networking, and team areas on the fifth floor are equipped similarly to those on the lower floors, including ceiling speakers for background music.

The opening celebrations took place in the already completed atrium on September 7. Final acceptance was completed in December 2023.