Aces High Media Wall

The clients requirement was for a truly multi-functional room.  The home owner is a bridge fanatic and has weekly card games at his home. This room is consequently used to seat between 4 and 12 people when playing bridge. 

The room was also to be used as a lounge for listening to music, which was to be very high quality, and the room also wanted to be used for a projection cinema system too.  Not much to ask really. But…some consideration was required to store up to 16 chairs when not in use.

Storage Solution:

Our first thought about this project was how to create storage for the 16 chairs, view the art and find a home for the AV equipment and associated hardware. The solution we came up with was to build a false wall, behind which we could store all of this.

False Wall:

All of the equipment that was not required for general day to day use is housed in a 19" equipment rack. The blu-ray player and games consoles are built into the door. It was planned that the three pieces of artwork would be mounted in the wall and the middle picture would be mounted on. In effect, an opening door.

To eliminate the need for a handle we installed a proximity detector in the door, located behind one of the pictures. This type of sensor is the type of thing you would swipe your hand in front of, similar to those used in hand dryers. It is not infrared as it needed to pass through the painting.  This sensor was then used to open an electric door mechanism.

All sounds straight forward so far, but the door weighs in at 160kg as it houses the substantial centre speaker for the cinema and other equipment too. So an extra heavy duty opener was required.  Next problem, how do we get the door open with the picture to the left butted up tight to it? Answer, we install a chain motor (similar to the type of thing you use to open window at high level.) This chain motor is connected through the wall to the left hand picture, using a magnet so it can manually be opened if required. The action of swiping your had over the middle picture firstly pushes the left hand picture forward by 100mm, enough to then allow the door to open.

Various sensors were incorporated in the control programming to ensure the door could not be opened with the video projection screen in the down position and also to ensure the screen could not be lowered with the picture or door open.

Media Room to Cinema Room:

At the press of a button the room turns into a high quality cinema room. Notice the black fabric which comes down behind the electric screen so we fully mask the pictures.

Colour Change Lighting:

We needed to light the room quite differently depending on its current use. Colour change LED lighting also changes the dynamics of the room, simply at the press of a button.