IT and AV consultancy for Roku Europe

IT and AV consultancy on workplace projects across the UK and Amsterdam to deliver a worldclass user experience sees success acknowledged at UK Regional BCO Awards.

The Team

JLL, HLW, GDMP, Evoraedge, Parkeray, Overbury, proAV, Cinos, Tétris

The Project

Cordless supported Roku Europe with IT and AV consultancy on three concurrent workplace development projects in the UK, as well as Amsterdam.

Technologies

AV & Multimedia technologies including collaboration and Unified Communications, audio distribution, digital displays, branding and signage, presentation technologies, IT Physical Infrastructure, Wi Fi, and extensive TV signal distribution system.

Roku creates streaming devices that are used by millions of consumers in North America, Latin America and Europe.

Cordless was engaged to provide IT & AV design and project management consultancy to support Roku in creating world class workplace facilities during a historic and exciting time of growth. Roku had identified 4 new sites to add to its European real estate portfolio and support its business and R&D operations:

75,000 sq ft in the Cambridge Science Park, UK
20,000 sq ft in Amsterdam, Netherlands
75,000 sq ft in Manchester, UK
25,000 sq ft in Cardiff, UK

Across all projects, Roku understood the role of IT and AV, technology in creating a high quality, innovative and collaborative working environment and thus engaged Cordless to provide technical design advice and project assurance. Consistency across geographies is an important part of Roku’s growth strategy and Cordless needed to work to ensure that the workplace technology fully aligned with global standards and user expectations.

Since Roku develops content and devices for the streaming market, Audio Visual technologies play an important role in the operations of the business; from supporting testing in Roku Labs, through to collaboration and social spaces, meeting and training room technologies, content distribution and digital signage across the workplace – both indoors and out.

The Roku Lab environments work to test audio quality, picture quality, and ensure Quality Assurance on all Roku hardware and services. This use case had a unique requirement and needed a very extensive and high quality coaxial TV signal distribution system that had to function in addition to the standard IP network. Cordless worked to ensure fully integrated physical IT infrastructure and multimedia designs for these systems and services.

Another bespoke area within Roku is a Whole Home Demo Room – which is a living room environment designed to showcase the Roku technology ecosystem and product portfolio, including a TV, speaker systems and streaming devices.

The Automation Lab required customised shelf design to mount Roku’s AV and testing equipment on the wall. Whilst it is not part of a usual AV design, Cordless took on the design and coordination efforts to make sure the shelving system fully supports Roku’s testing requirements.

It was important to align with Roku’s global AV standards set in California in the US. Cordless was able to help apply the standard and make recommendations for local technology applications.
All collaboration spaces use Cisco video conferencing equipment set up as Zoom rooms, incorporating Zoom room booking systems. All workplaces are Wi-Fi first environments, supported by resilient Structured Cabling Systems.

Flexibility and futureproofing are an essential part of the technical designs. Not only does the business need offices that can provide for future needs as it continues to grow, the procurement and implementation phases running post pandemic faced supply chain shortages for a number of equipment.

With the project on a fast-track delivery schedule, Cordless was able to help suggest alternative meeting room and AV control technologies so as not to impact project timescales. In some cases, this meant finding temporary solutions for day one that could be brought up to higher specification solutions moving forward.

Roku has created four new globally consistent workplace environments to support a growing workforce, deliver a great user experience and support continued innovation and development of Roku products and services.

The HQ project in Cambridge was recognised by the BCO as winner of the Fit Out of Workplace Award for the Midlands and Central England. The concept for the design was ‘The Idea Lab’, creating a functional and charismatic new Roku home that encourages connectivity, collaboration, and ideas.

This project was recognised for the successful integration of general office areas and specialised laboratory facilities into one collaborative space. Despite the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic, the remarkable 87,000 sq. ft scheme was delivered remotely, with Roku’s teams in the US and delivery partners in the UK working together. Elements of the base build were reused and retained to maximise sustainability. As a pioneering and rapidly expanding organisation, Roku now has ample space to adapt, grow, and prepare for the future.