audio-visual home cinema installation
Some movie fans will know exactly what they want in their dream home cinema. Perhaps they want it to look like a classic movie house, or to take elements from a particular movie — we've seen Star Wars home cinemas in the past, and one using design ideas from The Matrix. Or they might want specific equipment, or ask for a drinks bar at the back, or to prioritise screen size over all other considerations. There's invariably a wishlist of some kind.
But when Wavetrain Cinemas began discussions over the design for this home cinema, there was no initial concept.
“The client's brief was simply that he wanted an amazing home cinema,” says Wavetrain Cinemas’ David Moseley, “or to use his own words: ‘surprise us’.”
Wot, no brief?
Far from feeling bewildered, however, Wavetrain's team was ready to jump on this very general initial guidance.
“This has become a common occurrence for us,” says David Moseley. “Clients are often happy to trust us to design the cinema room. We always take the project from initial design concepts to building the cinema, and through to the final installation and calibration. We rarely repeat a design, and even if a client asks for a specific design, we will customise it to the client and the architecture of the main house.”
But with no specific brief, where to start?
“Well, when there's a completely open design, we'll try to find clues as to what makes the client tick. This is hard to explain, really — how we manage to come up with a creative idea. But in this instance the main house was one of the oldest houses in Australia, and since it had already been renovated, we asked the clients to show us around what had been done. During that walk around, we came across some windows repeated in the house with pointed arches that felt gothic in style — they reminded me of a visit to England and the detail in a church cloister.
“So the initial concept was to
