The Challenge & Stakeholder Alignment
The project’s driving mission was to transform a brand new, highly sustainable structural facility into a living laboratory, translating abstract eco-efficient engineering concepts into digestible public knowledge for occupants, visitors, and students. To ensure complete technical, structural, and educational accuracy, I aligned and managed cross-functional workflows across multiple internal and external stakeholders:
- Construction & Engineering Leads: Harvested architectural as-builts, sustainable material metrics, and rating checklists regarding vital green structural attributes.
- Internal Facilities Staff: Audited electrical rough-ins, local local networking feeds, and analyzed the harsh ambient lighting and dust conditions of the heavy-traffic entrance gateway.
- Video Production Specialist: Directed the capture of high-definition video narratives featuring project leads discussing the long-term ecological significance of the facility's construction.
Section 508 Accessibility & Environmental Safeguards
Operating a public terminal within a high-exposure entryway introduced stringent legal compliance and physical parameters that standard commercial solutions failed to address out of the box:
Section 508 Compliance
To guarantee absolute inclusion for all visitors in accordance with Section 508 public terminal guidelines, the user interface and physical layout incorporated two structural safeguards:
- High-Visibility UI Touch Targets: Digital menu layers featured oversized selection nodes across the 26-inch Elo monitor surface, lowering fine-motor requirements for precise navigation.
- Dual-Screen Mirroring Array: A secondary large display panel was mounted directly behind the main chassis enclosure, mirroring and scaling the workspace view. This completely solved a common accessibility issue: single operators no longer blocked the terminal's content, allowing wheelchair users, class groups, and individuals viewing from a distance to observe the educational materials simultaneously.
Environmental Adjustments
- Solar Glare Mitigation: The terminal occupied a gallery defined by extensive window facades. To restrict daytime solar glare from completely diminishing the display panel's visibility, we engineered a custom screen blocker in the opposing window matrix to block direct light.
- Dust & Debris Management: Located in a high-traffic entry point, the computer's internal fans rapidly accumulated outdoor dust tracked into the foyer. To eliminate separate IT labor costs, updates and hardware checks were handled manually and aligned with the physical building maintenance schedule, allowing facilities staff to clean external cooling vents during routine building checks.
