Corner Entertainment Center – 01

I have just begun to design a new entertainment center and I thought that I would share the entire design process with you.  This project has some unique design challenges and, quite honestly, I am not quite sure yet what the overall style of the Entertainment Center is going to be.

The first step will be to list all of the design requirements, and the first requirement is going to be about the space in which the piece will be  sitting.  The piece will be sitting in a corner of a room, rather than directly up against the wall, hence the name “Corner Entertainment Center”.  The unique design challenge here is that eventually it will be placed up against a wall and not in the corner.

What this means is that this cannot be a “built in” cabinet, it will need to be a movable piece of furniture.  My initial thought is to make a credenza style entertainment center.  The problem is that a credenza doesn’t really look good in a corner of a room.  However, if I were to angle the ends of the credenza it would be a better fit in the corner.

But, what would this look like up against a wall?  This might look a bit odd because now the ends would angle inwards toward the wall.  I am not sure if this would be aesthetically acceptable or not.  I will have to do some sketches and some mock up CAD work and see what it looks like.

The next requirement is that there will be a 55″ HDTV sitting on top of the entertainment center.  The TV is about 52″ wide so the top of the entertainment center has to be at least that long.  The diagonal measurement across the corner is 81″, so the length can be between 52″ and 81″.

The next requirement is going to relate to storage capacity.  It needs to be  able to house several components such as a DVD player, Stereo, DVR, and a Wii gaming system.  It also needs storage for DVD’s, CD’s, Wii games and controllers.

So, here is the list of requirements that I have so far for the corner entertainment center.

• Movable piece of furniture (not built in)
• It needs to look good in a corner as well as up against a flat wall
• The length needs to be between 52″ and 81″
• Lots of storage capacity

Now, off to the drawing board! Or should I say the computer.  Hmmm.  I am already there.  I guess I better get to work.