Is the way we're consuming TV influencing home design?
By
September 10, 2018
Most Kiwi households can probably relate to being scattered around the home on different devices so everyone can watch their favourite Netflix series or YouTube channel without having to fight over the remote.
Does this mean the days of having the TV as the centrepiece of the living room are gone? No, not quite yet it seems.
Although some of us may have moved our TV out of the main living space to another area of the house, or have gotten rid of the TV screen altogether, Jasmax senior interior designer Tessa Pawson says she hasn’t seen a huge trend in New Zealanders ditching the traditional living room set up just yet.
“At the moment televisions are still very much the centrepiece of many Kiwis’ living rooms and there’s still a demand for the latest and greatest TV. Smart TVs are now mainstream and screens seem to be getting bigger and better,” says Tessa.
One trend Tessa noticed while attending the world’s leading furniture design fair in Milan last year was how many creative ways designers are coming up with concealing TVs and other AV equipment into beautiful objects and furniture. “People can then hide them away when they’re not using them. It’s a simple and clever way to blend technology into our everyday surroundings.”
While TVs still exist in many living rooms, Tessa says household members may spend more time on separate devices in different parts of the home. “In all types of interior design, we think heavily about the communal spaces of a home, and the ways they encourage human contact and conversations. We create opportunities for people to interact with each other in interior environments, be that an office, apartment building or new hotel. Creating these moments is all the more important in today’s world as more of our entertainment is moving onto personal handheld devices, and people are consuming entertainment when and where it suits them.”