Hidden assets come into view

Interior designers face a big challenge today... whether to camouflage home entertainment systems or make them a focal point in their designs.

Years ago, the only way to watch a movie to its full effect would be to go to the cinema. But today, advances in home entertainment system technology have allowed the average consumer to recreate the cinematic experience in their living room. A home theatre system typically consists of a flat screen or plasma television, and surround sound speakers. Quality home sound systems have become important for modern day consumers. As these types of technology have become more commonplace, ways of integrating them into the interior design of a room have become more sophisticated.

Interior designers today face the challenge of either camouflaging these entertainment systems, or making them a focal point in their designs. Depending on a client's tastes and preferences, the interior designer can suggest solutions to integrate this technology into a harmonious design. According to Avinash Babani, Marketing Manager, Interiors Quotient: "Eighty per cent of customers that we deal with tend to want their systems camouflaged. A lot depends on requirements. With large speaker systems we tend to customise furniture around the speaker units themselves. For satellite speaker systems we tend to customise the colour with the base colour of the room, so that they just blend in."

Rashid Jehangir and Sunil Gopal, Directors of Imagine Technologies, say hiding home entertainment systems is easy. "There are many ways in which we can hide products. Equipment such as the rack can go in another room. It can also be put into cabinets. When we are designing a home theatre, it's a lot easier because the whole room is dedicated to one purpose," says Jehangir.

"The challenge arises when we have a multiuse room, say for instance, when people want to have this technology in a living room. Some clients like to look at their equipment, so this is easy as hiding cable isn't a problem. If they don't want to see the equipment, then we have to find ways to hide it; we can hide speakers in the wall, in the ceiling, and we can put them into a cabinet. There are endless options. What is used depends on both the customer and the interior designer," says Gopal.

Imagine Technology specialises in high performance audio-visual equipment and related solutions, and part of Jehangir and Gopal's work is to help interior designers incorporate these devices harmoniously into the design of a room. They explain how there are many ways to camouflage speakers: "We represent a company called Sonance from the US, who invented the concept of putting speakers into the wall and ceiling. These speakers are flush mount, so the interior designer can work along with us and the lighting designer to come up with a beautiful ceiling design that incorporates the speakers," explains Gopal.

Babani agrees: "We usually recommend clients to opt for satellite speaker systems and get them custom-made in a colour that will blend into the general background. For higher end solutions we tend to recommend in-wall speaker systems. These are essentially hundreds of tiny speaker cones embedded behind a fake wall or ceiling. The end result is that you get audio emanating from your living room wall."

To ensure that sound quality is not compromised from a speaker being in a cabinet or in the wall, some speakers are specially designed to be hidden. Jehangir explains: "A speaker needs to be a certain distance away from the wall to perform at its best. If you push it up against the wall you get too much base. But these specially designed speakers have little computer chips in them that let them do digital signal processing to compensate for the fact that they are right up against the wall. They also have boundary compensation and built-in amplifiers."

There are also many interesting options to consider when trying to integrate flat screen televisions into the design of a room. A couple of high-end solutions are to have the screen come down from the ceiling, or to use an 'art screen'. Gopal explains further: "We offer something we call the art screen, where you can hide a flat screen or a big home theatre screen behind any painting. The client can even choose the colour of the frame. It comes in different sizes and is custom-made to the customer's specifications. We also offer television lift solutions, where you can have a plasma screen that comes down from the ceiling and can swivel anyway you want."

While many prefer to camouflage these devices, there are still a number of people who prefer to actually see their equipment. Many speakers for example, are finished to a high standard. They are designed to look like pieces of fine furniture, and have different finishes, such as leather or suede.