Home Entertainment, design concept, home theater, screens, shelves

Home Theater Screen Disguised as a Bookshelf

Now, here's a great idea: Why not disguise a projection screen as a bookshelf, and then place a few other identical-looking shelves nearby as decoys? That's just what Italian designer Matteo Ragni has dreamed up here, trying to cross that bridge between a dedicated home theater room and a multi-use space that might double as a reading room, too. The only problem we see? If this is going to be a big enough screen, it's going to amount to one tremendously long shelf. This example is 170 centimeters, or 66.9 inches wide. That's not going to give you much of a big-screen experience. [Livit (Italian), via Red Ferret]

2:30 PM on Thu Sep 20 2007
By Charlie White
7,406 views
15 comments

Comments

s017jrs at 02:39 PM on 09/20/07
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I don't have any wall mount book shelves mounted high enough for a projector screen.
Maybe I'm just short?
atomx at 02:48 PM on 09/20/07
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I think it's genius, assuming of course they come in larger sizes. Looks pretty good too. Keep your DVDs on the shelf!
xenobread at 02:50 PM on 09/20/07
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The Italians love to hand their book shelves such that the books touch the ceiling. If they don't, it is considered extremely uneducated and rude to the guest.
ibelli at 02:52 PM on 09/20/07
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Not a horrible idea.
paulruby at 02:56 PM on 09/20/07
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76" diag is not much of a big-screen experience? Geeze. That would be awesome for reasonable sized rooms. Great idea!
Colonel35 at 03:07 PM on 09/20/07
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66.9 inches across yields a diagonal of about 76 inches (given a 16:9 ratio), which isn't huge, but is more than respectable in the kind of environment I'd imagine this bookshelf would be installed (i.e. apartment). For large, dedicated "media" rooms, you wouldn't bother with this in the first place.
jermjerm at 03:10 PM on 09/20/07
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It comes out to about a 76 in wide screen television, so it is a big screen experience. It's just not that big for a projector screen.

We'll probably see this in someone's bedroom on cribs. Not big enough for their home theater but big enough for a movie/sports star's bedroom tv.
jermjerm at 03:17 PM on 09/20/07
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@Colonel35: CURSES, you beat me to it while I was doing the math. =(
banmojo at 03:27 PM on 09/20/07
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I think it looks great, not to mention practical. What else could we hang on the wall, storing screens surreptitiously?

Ahhh, I'm going to wait 'til the nanobot technology is available to create a perfect screen on any surface :^)
Collins1 at 03:28 PM on 09/20/07
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I think you'll find that once something is used as a shelf for books, it actually IS a bookshelf.
axiomatic at 03:49 PM on 09/20/07
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Great idea...

...if you don't have kids.

My monkeys (kids) would be swinging from this thing the very second I left the room after installing it.
dle5 at 05:30 PM on 09/20/07
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Ummm, why not just project on the wall? That's what I do. I don't have any screens to hide.
TVGenius at 06:36 PM on 09/20/07
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Hey, it's a more usable and functional (and feasible) design than a lot of the other crap 'designers' come up with...
Collins1 at 08:38 PM on 09/20/07
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@dle5: Because if you projected onto the wall, where would you put your bookshelves?!
From: GEEKSUGAR.COM: TRACKBACK at 04:10 PM on 09/22/07
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Our friends from Apartment Therapy will be the first people to remind us that not everyone has room for an enormous 100-inch plasma in their living room.