Projection brings imaginations to life at the Chailey Heritage Foundation

Chailey Heritage Foundation is one of the UK’s leading centres for children and young people with complex neurodisabilities.

Founded in 1903 and based in the village of North Chailey in East Sussex, the charity educates children from as young as two-and-a-half up to 19 from across the community and beyond, and their mission is to give disabled children and young people every opportunity to pursue their fullest potential. Altogether there are 93 pupils at the school, 25 young adults living in Futures Transition Service, and another 150 young people visiting their Life Skills Centre and Hub from the local community. An accessible gym, multimedia suite, kitchen, and horse-riding arena are just some of the facilities available at the charity to provide visitors with a fun and engaging experience.

In a bid to improve the charity’s experiential offering within a bigger space, staff at Chailey Heritage Foundation put together a brief to redevelop the centre’s somewhat dated assembly hall into a state of-the art facility for sport, rebound therapy and the creative arts. As technology has been key for the charity in helping to give children the best in life, they wanted to develop a multi-purpose area that could offer an immersive 4D experience while allowing them to make more of the space they had available. They sought the expertise of their architects and IT project management experts, TEECOM, and together they designed the Dream Centre.

The charity wanted a built-in trampoline area for rebound therapy on one side of the Dream Centre stage and a dedicated experience space on the other. They wanted projected surfaces that could serve as both a backdrop for a stage that sits affront the open space in the middle and could also project different themes across the centre.

TEECOM was responsible for procuring the right equipment for the Dream Centre and they partnered with creative software design company, 7th Sense, for installations before going out to tender together for the right kit, including the media Server, video distribution & processing, audio lighting, control and projection.

12 x Epson EB-L1505U projectors and 11 x ELPLX02 ultra-short throw lenses were ordered for the visual installation. The 12,000 lumen brightness of the projectors enabled content to stand out even during the day while the ‘periscope’ style lenses enabled the projectors to produce floor-to-ceiling displays without offsetting (projecting onto itself) any of the content.

Blair Parkin, Principal, EVP, TEECOM said, "The new Dream Centre was designed to enable young people to take control of their environment, create the audio and visual effects they want, and explore their feelings and dreams through the medium of sound and light. To achieve these effects, TEECOM chose an Epson EB-L1505UH 12K lumen WUXGA laser projector with 5.1 channel audio system. A further ten Epson EB-L1505UH projectors are located around the stage areas, projecting onto the walls in a carefully designed display configuration with ultra-short throw lenses."

Content Developer for Chailey Heritage Foundation Mark Elms, said: “The Dream Centre’s immersive space is astonishing. We are now able to provide an incredibly wide range of new experiences for the children and young people here at Chailey Heritage Foundation. The response from the young people has been overwhelmingly positive, with new requests for content coming every day. We really couldn’t be happier with the final product.”

Sally-Anne Murray, Development Director at Chailey Heritage Foundation, said: “The immersive 4D experience transports young people who can’t fly to the other side of the world, brings them underwater to swim with fishes, takes them to Egypt to see the pyramids and allows their imagination to take over. The Dream Centre has become a focal part of our facilities and the youngsters and their families always leave smiling.”