CONSOLES and TECHNICAL FURNITURE
FOR BROADCASTING ENVIRONMENTS
CONSOLES and TECHNICAL FURNITURE
FOR BROADCASTING ENVIRONMENTS
RACKBLOCKS
For many years, the majority of my design work has been focused on creating consoles and technical furniture for the control rooms and media production suites of radio and television broadcasting facilities. In early 1979, I founded Eastboard Consoles to address the rapidly-developing market for these specialized workstations, and have completed projects for international clients ranging from the Nagano Olympics, to national networks and individual TV stations, with project scopes ranging from a single console to entire, multi-floor broadcast facilities. You can see my technical furniture designs and download project briefs at www.eastboard.com. In 2005, Eastboard Consoles became a division of the A/S Custom Furniture Company.
With today’s trend toward consolidation, and the proliferation of centralized broadcast hubs, the need for elaborate, multi-tier control rooms at local stations is waning. At the same time, production equipment has become increasingly smaller and more capable, requiring far less workspace than before. These trends have reduced the demand for consoles in general, but especially for expensive custom designs, and TV station budgets now favor lower-cost technical furniture products. To address this need, in 2006 I created the RACKBLOCKS Modular Console System, an easily-assembled, highly adaptable, cost-effective set of components designed to quickly build consoles, technical furniture, and monitor walls of any length, layout, or configuration.
The modular, ADA-compliant, interchangeable components of the RACKBLOCKS system rest securely on aluminum and steel frames, yet can be easily repositioned…tool-free…at any time, even hot-swapped (!), making revising equipment placement or moving entire operator positions easy. The frames are built in standard sizes which can be combined and reconfigured in many ways, and all feature T-slot tracks for attaching monitor arms and mounts, speaker shelves, lighting, or accessories. Corner wedge modules allow for building wrap-around configurations, and worksurfaces are easily replaceable when equipment upgrades require new cutouts and details. RACKBLOCKS consoles can even be fully disassembled, and with components added or removed, be entirely rebuilt to suit new requirements; it’s a future-proof system.
Now in its second generation, the RACKBLOCKS Modular Console System has become the predominant method of creating consoles and technical furniture for Eastboard Consoles’ clients.