Public Buildings wanted a committee meeting room. The technology brief carried a fourth objective that changed what the room was.
Three of the objectives were ordinary: audio-visual capability in the room, live internet streaming of committee meetings, view-only overflow for Council. The fourth was enough capability to run a City Council meeting if the Chamber were unavailable — and that one makes the room a continuity facility for the legislative body rather than a place committees meet.
It drove everything downstream. The seat count is nineteen because that is what City Council needs, not because nineteen is a convenient number for a hearing room, and the distribution frame, the mounts and the bill of materials all follow from a room that has to be able to hold a legislative session rather than a discussion.
Designed from 2022 with Public Buildings and the project architects, and completed as I left, while the Council Chamber itself was being rebuilt — so the chamber and its understudy were in construction at the same time.
Outcome
An understudy for the Council Chamber, built while the Chamber itself was being rebuilt.