Trading Rooms Design
 Version 2 -- SAT 3/11/2000 
 
University of Houston
College of Business Administration
Jerry Strawser, Dean
Department of Finance, Ron Singer, Chairperson
 

The idea is to utilize two classrooms from the south side of Melcher Hall.

  1. This is the view from the south of the two rooms.
    They are the first two rooms to the left, as you come into the Melcher Hall Lobby.
    1. 126 Melcher Hall (Trading Classroom); and
    2. 122 Melcher Hall (The Trading Room).

  2. Room 126 (Trading Classroom) is a 66 person tiered classrom. It will contain additionally:

    1. Computer in the lectern
    2. Computer projector in the ceiling
    3. Video Camera -- ceiling mounted

      For recording or transmitting special presentations and lectures in classrooms format.
      Like for broadcasting:

      • The Ivory Tower Investment Hour;
      • Fun for Funds Managers
      • ...

    4. Two wall mounted large flat screens (these monitor (copy) the Trading Room screens).
    5. Door access to Room 122 (Trading Room)
    6. Audio/Video system (amp, mics, speakers) and connection to recording/broadcasting equipment in the Trading Room Server Rack.

    Room 122 (Trading Room) is 661.5 sq. ft (27' by 24.5'). It will contain:

    1. Four work pods (shown as two-seat stations; one cpu and three monitors (adjustable wall mounted flatscreen monitors)
    2. Server rack containing servers and interface boxes in three 19" racks (these are standard "rack mounted" options for processors, disk drives and interface devices). These have removeable front doors. The corner arrangement allows access to the wires in the back (only the blinking lights are seen from the front -- and only if you have the doors off). Otherwise it is a black tower (like the obelisk in the Kubrick movie 2001)

      The corner should be 6" raised floor (only about 50 sg.ft). The AC from below will blow up thru the three racks and the heat escapes from the top of the rack. All power and cabling goes down underneath the raised floor (the central Melcher Hall communications rooms sits almost directly under the Trading Room in the basement making it easy to feed power and network cables from below to the raised floor). All power and networking to the four work pods is located under the continuous counter that makes a U-shape around three sides of the room.

    3. Conference table for 10 (a moveable conference table)
    4. 18 chairs
    5. Video conferencing capabilities (the camera in the ceiling is shown in the images). Teleconferencing viewers will see the conference table and the two big monitors on the wall in the background.
    6. Two large wall mounted flatscreens (video controls are located in the racks -- they are accessed from the back of the rack)

  3. View from the back of the classroom.


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  4. View of both rooms over the connecting wall.

  5. The Trading Room viewing the server rack. Note the access door to the classroom behind the server rack. The ceiling mounted video conferencing camera views the conference table and the two large flat screens

  6. Looking South at the Trading Room.

  7. Space adjacent to the lobby and outside glass wall is NOT useable -- it is full of AC duct.

  8. Looking south toward the Faculty Parking Lot

  9. Note the access door to Melcher Hall Lobby is glass.

  10. Notice access door to the Trading Room from the Classroom.

  11. All four big flatscreens are visible. Space may be available adjacent the elevators for two smaller flatscreens (where the Melcher Hall maps are now located by the left hand elevator in the Melcher Hall Lobby)

  12. View of the server rack standing in the Trading Room.

  13. View of a workstation pod (one pc and three adjustable flatscreen monitors wall mounted from the back -- they thus appear to be suspended in the air).