Bespoke furniture

Reading this month’s House & Garden we stumbled across an article about how to incorporate or hide audio-visual equipment into interior design.  It’s a great design conundrum… should you conceal or make a feature of your television?

The House & Garden article elaborated on numerous ways of integrating a television into the design of a room.  From attaching the television to an electronic lift so that it emerges out of a shelving unit; to mounting it onto a rotating screen into the wall; to incorporating it within a false chimney breast; the House & Garden interior design contributors have recommended a variety of creative ways of avoiding potential technology-related design blunders.

But what’s Extreme’s position on the matter? We’ve asked Extreme Creative Director Marcello Cuconato what he thinks about ‘Living with technology…’

To be quite frank, there’s no definitive or correct answer to this conundrum.  I have worked on projects where we have both concealed and made a feature of the television: the rule of thumb, though, is never to make the television the key focus of the room and to work with the subtleties of the room’s design.

In a working, busy kitchen we would rather avoid complete concealment as it eradicates future complication. There’s no need to reveal and conceal the screen: it’s just there when you need it. In a living room, bedroom or study we sometimes build the television into the design of the room by, for example, framing the screen or by designing bespoke panelling. Alternatively we create custom-built cabinets or develop hidden mechanisms to conceal the television. We simply work with our rooms’ designs to ensure that the television is a subtle additional feature. 

In a living room it’s sometimes difficult not to feel that all of the furniture is ‘pointing towards’ the television but it’s simply about having that eye for the finer detail.  If you’ve created a wonderfully snug seating area and part of the function of the room is to gather the family around to watch the television, it would be churlish to face the furniture the other way!  

In one project Extreme was commissioned for, the direction taken was to conceal the television completely. The screen behind a dark, purpose-built mirror so that it was completely invisible when switched off.  It would have been problematic to create a cabinet for this room, as the space was limited so sliding doors were out of the question and hinged doors would have been inconvenient.  The mirror created the perfect clean, uncluttered, practical camouflage.

The only drawback to incorporating a television into the design of a room is that you need to be very clever with what you’re creating and future-proof the design by allowing for the possibility of upgrading the technology.

At Extreme we specialise in creating bespoke furniture. With every element of the room’s design, our key considerations are how to best complement the overall look of the room and how to maximise on the practicality of the fixture.  Televisions don’t have to be an eyesore: the story is all in the telling.