TV packaging to TV furniture: more eco-friendly solution, interesting style

This may not be to everyone’s taste, but Tom Ballhatchet, a recent graduate from Central St Martins’ with an MA in Industrial Design, has come up with a solution for what to do with all that protective packaging that comes wrapped around a new flat screen TV.

The idea is that it can be turned into a rather quirky TV stand, with room for other AV accessories below.

His design is to be patented, which also points to the fact that this isn’t your common-or-garden squeaky polystyrene solution. I don’t like the concept of bunging several thousand pounds worth of new TV on flimsy, easily snapped material. Neither would most current packaging be very eco-friendly. Simply standing your TV on it is only putting off the time when it has to travel to landfill.

The article describes this stuff as “foam” though I hope it’s tougher and greener than my vision of foam packaging – in fact it’s expanded polypropylene which can be created in any texture and colour.

There’s also the issue of what to do if you already have a TV cabinet, or you’d rather have a nice wood-and-glass housing for your TV instead of a squishy trapezium.

I’m sure there’ll be some market for it.

(Via Inhabitat)

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