Emergency Operations Center Design

First, I should start by saying that I am a proponent of the “one room” concept for emergency operations center design rather than distributing activities throughout multiple rooms where staff have less face to face interaction and don’t share the collaboration benefits of a large room where they can see and hear each other as well as the video wall system. This is not to say that a large operations center surrounded with conference and breakout rooms is not a sound approach. However, when selecting a space, one large room should be the focal point and preferable to smaller individual spaces where the staff doesn’t interact with each other. The one-room concept is not only operationally sound; it’s practical because it gathers all key participants in the same room. Second, budget is always the primary driver, and third, most emergency operations centers are limited in space, or considered dual-purpose. It’s true that the central operations center with its hustle and bustle is problematic because of the noise and distracting movement of the participants within the room. However the advent of crisis management software and modern audiovisual technologies, make the one-room concept for emergency operations center design the most efficient in terms of having all of the right people in the same room hearing and seeing the same things on the large screens at the same time. Certainly the video feeds can be distributed throughout the rooms; however the ability to manage what’s displayed on the large video screens at the same time, and in an efficient manner, trumps individual rooms where someone in each room has to know how to operate the audiovisual system within that room. You can learn more about Americon video walls on the video wall systems page or find information specific to emergency operations centers on the EOC video walls page.