| Interior Housing Design - still stuck in the 50's |
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| Contributed by Alan Lewis | ||
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Home electronics have passed the stage of vacuum tubes and Bakelite cases; family entertainment passed the "sat around the wireless" in the 1960's. So why is interior architecture still stuck in the days of "Saturday night at the Palladium"? Do any of you have connection with housing developers? Ideally, we have at least one reader who is either an architect, or a decision maker in the design of new homes. Please, understand that the modern family, especially the family who can afford to buy a new home, tends to have something more than a dual channel stereo TV, with two integral speakers. Pro-Logic TV has been common since at least 1991. Pro-Logic uses a rear-speaker system. Multi-speaker hi-fi's have been common since at least 1988; these to tend to have rear-channel speaker systems. And Dolby Digital/DTS offers at least 6 speakers. To gain the benefit of these speakers, one needs to position them around the viewer and, in the case of TV/Home Theater systems, in a position relative to the screen. Which means that one needs a room that has at lends itself to such placement. Ideally, oblong in shape, allowing a screen to be placed at one end, and the ability to position at least the front L/R speakers left and right of the screen. It is not rocket science. HT systems have been common for 5+ years now. The price has dropped from £2500+ to the point where you can get a 5.1 DVD player free with a packet of cornflakes. So why is the architecture of new houses still based around the concept of putting the TV in the corner? And worse, having to view at an angle - the TV is now at 45deg to any logical furniture placement, unless one wants to angle furniture and have dead space behind it. A problem compounded greatly given most new houses are the size of three co-joined hamster cages! I've just looked around a friend's new house. Nice thought, having a wall plate with antenna, satellite connection, dual phone socket, plugs, etc. But it is in the corner.. and who wants the telephone located by a TV??? Handy for drowning out the caller, I suppose, or annoying the hell out of the rest of the family when Auntie Edna (or worse, the mother-in-law) calls right at the crucial part of a program. Or the newsflash warning of bird-flu. People, the living room is still deemed to be the centre of the family area. Its where we want to watch TV, DVDs, listen to music. In full glorious pro-logic/5.1/7.1/DD/DTS glory. Not spend hours arguing over furniture placement, compromising the on the speaker setup, and then fiddling with an arcane menu system developed by someone for whom English was a second language and common-sense a foreign concept, trying to get speaker delay programmed to keep the sound system balanced due to the crazy positions of the speakers, forced by having a TV in the corner. And while we are at it, why not put speaker outlets in the walls? Its not hard, run the cabling along to the patch point, mark the patch sockets RearL, RearR, etc. With flush mounted sockets on the walls, at optimum height, at least people have the option of using them and avoiding taking up the carpet to run cabling tween set and tweeter. It would also be nice to see Cat5 cabling installed in houses. Doesn't have to be much, an outlet in each room for example, going to an under-stair patch panel. Neither would it significantly add to the cost of the house. And maybe most people wouldn't use it, but that is changing weekly as media-centers displace the traditional separates boxes (TV, hifi separates, set-top box, etc). And with the massive uptake of consumer level PCs, it all reflects the changing face of the British family home. How many houses come without running water, sewerage, gas/electricity?* None. How many come without light fittings and toilets? None. So why are developers ignorant to this changing behaviour? *the friends new house! Yep, just had a phone call - none of her electrical sockets work. Oops. What a thing to find on a Sunday afternoon! Only registered users can write comments.
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