Training Room Design

Google SketchUp is good for these sorts of things. It will give you a chance to play with the room layout and see how different pieces fit in the room. It's completely free. Download it and play with it for an hour or two and you should be up and running. There are tons of tutoirals on youtube if you run into any frustrations. 

Hi Eirc,

I don't have a webbsite I can point you towards, but having done this several times myself I would be glad to share a couple of learnings.

Lessons Learned:  (in no particular order)

1. Unless you have a big budget, forget the "black box theater"  approach where anything can be reconfigured or moved anywhere. While it sounds good, in practice it's rarely used and the expense and complexity of having things built and wired for this capability are rarely worth it. Build the room to accomodate the two most likely arrangements and call it a day.
2. Don't forget about the coats! It seems silly, but depending on where you are, wet coats and winter wear take up a ton of valuable space as do baclpacks, briefcases, etc. Consider creating a coat room of sorts if you can
3. Consider ways to make the room(s) more useful by creating break-out spaces with folding dividers. This flexibility does come in handy and allows the room to be sub-divided for different uses or even break out sessions.
4. Don't skimp on the projector screen! While the projector can be upgraded as technology advances, rarely can we justify the expense of installing a better screen. There are signifigant differences in image clarity, brightness, off-axis viewing. Do your own research, but don't be afraid to spend the money for a Stewart screen (vs Dalite, Draper, etc). It's worth it.  Have an A/V pro help you decide what specific screen material and style of screen fit your needs best.
5. Three words... ventilation, ventilation, ventilation. As someone once described a 30 person training room to me...   You have a sealed box filled with 3 tons of 98.6 degree meat.  Nice, eh?  Add to that lights, computers and even more gadgets as technology advances and you start to see why signifigantly upgrading the air exchange system is key. Whatever your facilities  folks say the load rating for a meeting room ventilation system should be (typically rated in pounds I believe)... add 50%. You won't be sorry.
6. Don't forget about serving areas. Be sure and plan enough space to lay out food and snacks. Often times an extra-wide hallway outside the room works better than having it all inside and offers more flexibility.
7. use the right wall materials. Lots of opinions on this one and they usually revolve around keeping the walls looking nice vs being able to hang/tape things. I found the best compromise was to go with the 4 inch "strip" of corkboard all the way around the room. I've seen a cheaper version done with a strip of cut down acoustic tiles. This strip allows you to hang things but still keeps the walls looking clearn and/or leaving space for permanent graphics etc.
8. Speaking of walls.... a fairly cheap upgrade is to have the walls double-rocked. This is especially great for offering a degree of soundproofing in modern steel studded buildings and allows the cork strip to inset flush with the surface.
9. Purchase furniture that specific to that training room and designed for your needs. Chairs get rolled away into other spaces, learners "rock", etc.  Consider buying chairs that are comfortable, but don't roll around and don't move. Get tables with cable management if it's an IT-type situation. Otherwise, go with high quality folding IF you have a place to store them and often need to set up theater-style vs classroom.
10. Finally, maximize the storage. As my wife always told me, you can never have too much of it. Built-ins are great for this (especially if you follow the advice in point #1). Think effeciency and create storage spaces specifically designed for the types of items/materials you are most likely to store. For example... if you reuse flipcharts you've created, make a "garage" for your flip chart caddy. You get the idea.

Hope that rambling list helps and good luck with the build!

Bob

It really depends on the type of training materials you are trying to present. My question is do you actually need a traditional classroom or could you present the materials online in a virtual environment. Here is a link you will find interesting. 

http://www.braintrack.com/online-colleges/articles/the-future-of-online-learning-in-3d

I would suggest you first do the needs analysis. Ask yourself who is the intended audience. Is there even a need for a physical classroom or could this all be done in Second Life? Many companies and colleges are now switching to Second Life to teach courses and make presentations and I for one think it would be pretty cool to hold a company meeting in Second Life as opposed to sitting in a boring room where it may be difficult to see the instructor or hear what they are saying.