Gilkon Shrouds at Ravenhall Prison

Ravenhall Prison is a medium-security men’s prison in Melbourne’s west which ac­com­mo­dates 1000 prisoners. Built as a public private part­ner­ship by the GEO Con­sor­tium, the prison facility was of­fi­cial­ly opened on 12th October 2017. It began receiving prisoners on 13th November 2017.

Project manager Firas Zain from Engie oversaw Ravenhall’s au­dio­vi­su­al design and in­stal­la­tion. Prison con­struc­tion is metic­u­lous­ly planned well in advance, with little margin for error. This meant Engie had to ensure the AV system design was thor­ough­ly con­cep­tu­alised and thought through even before the first slab of concrete was poured.

Of the 37 buildings within Ravenhall, Engie was con­tract­ed to install AV com­po­nents in 34 of them. The scale of the roll-out ne­ces­si­tat­ed careful pre­plan­ning and extremely high quality control; with this many con­trac­tors working on a site, one dis­or­gan­ised con­trib­u­tor can slow down the entire project.

SHIELDING THE DISPLAYS

The extreme security protocols within a prison filter down to things like encrypted video signals, custom projector cages, and prisoner-proof display en­clo­sures for in-cell TVs. Aus­tralian metal fab­ri­ca­tion spe­cial­ist Gilkon played an important role supplying security shrouds (en­clo­sures) for all IPTV displays in prison cells, as well as the larger displays in waiting rooms and guest areas.

A Gilkon display enclosure for prison TVs can’t be bought off the shelf. As with many other aspects of the Ravenhall project, the display en­clo­sures were designed from scratch to meet specific pre-defined security and ISM standards. Creating custom steel fab­ri­ca­tions is Gilkon’s forte, and its in-house knowledge lent the­com­pa­ny  a place at the table during the design process.

“The Gilkon team assisted in the design of these shrouds,” says Firas. “They gave input as to how best to achieve the initial design by the architect.”

QUALITY CONTROL

Once designed, all shrouds underwent review by a number of personnel involved in the project.

Firas Zain: “There’s a group of people who review every­thing con­sist­ing of the en­gi­neer­ing de­part­ments, myself, the John Holland (builders) man­age­ment team, the architect, and of course the client or company body managing the prison.”

The prison cell displays are 24-inch NEC models, whereas larger 58-inch displays are found in the waiting room and common areas. Every screen in the premises is protected with a custom Gilkon shroud, even when installed in staff areas.

“Gilkon also played a big role in the QA process of the making of these shrouds,” says Firas. “Because they were coming from Sydney to Melbourne and because of the prolonged sign-out period, we had a very limited time to receive and install these shrouds. The QA had to be at the maximum level possible to ensure there would be zero units returned to supplier for any fixing, which was the case.”