What would be your perfect console room?

[transmatdalek]

I'd go for something like the FIve Doctors console room shape, although I'd make it feel like you could actually live in there. That is

*Floor would have light brown coloured carpet
*Walls would be similarly coloured and be soft to touch.
*Walls would rise up to the cealing, to reveal a 360 degree scanner monitor (apart from the main door!)
*It would be open plan into another area of the TARDIS which would be essentially the same shape as the main one, but this one would have sofas, dining tables etc.

Overall, it would be bright, hi tech, and looks like you could live in it.

[Scarfwearer]

I was recently reminded of this imaginative design by Rob Semenoff:
http://www.interocitor-media.com/tardis/tardis2002/conn_room4.jpg at Who3D: http://www.interocitor-media.com/tardis/.
It has a lot of really nice aspects, though I think I would forever be tripping over the step, particularly when in a hurry - which in the TARDIS seems to be a common occurrence.
I had forgotten about it, but I think the ceiling design must have influenced my own recent efforts...

Crispin

[DoctorWho8]

Still looking good after 7 years.
Bill Rudloff

[metrosonus]

Over the last couple years I've come to re-envision what I want to build. I originally started out wanting something Victorian / McGann but I ended up changing my mind. I recalled watching a documentary or a special feature on a DVD and someone was describing the first few doctors as more or less representing the eras they were broadcast in. Troughton was the Beatles Doctor, Pertwee the Jimmi Hendrix Doctor, Baker the intergalactic hippie / hobo / bohemian.

And I thought, you know, they never really had an 80's Doctor. I don't mean like new wave, over the top day glo skinny tie or anything, but I thought it would be cool to interpret the character and the TARDIS with the technology from the era. While I do enjoy the Victorian / flying Winnebago approach, I've always thought of the TARDIS as a scientific instrument. So for my console, I would keep the white NASA inspired theme from the older series, but update the console a bit with Vacuum Florescent Displays, membrane buttons and things like that, I bit 5 Doctor's ish.

For the console room, I always thought it would be cool to extend the controls outwards to the sides of the room, sort of like how on star trek you have stations around the outside of the bridge that feed data to the people in the middle. So I thought I would put a couple of stations on the walls of the console room. And for the walls themselves I think it would be cool to get some sort of metal screen and have the roundels as lighted circles behind it.

I'm sure in practice though it will be a mish mash of that and whatever materials I'm able to find at my locals builders supply.

[type 83]

If speaking in reality (What I hope to build) a nice little wooden shed outside with a console, a pair of double doors, a big armchair and an orange.

[galacticprobe]

If speaking in reality (What I hope to build) a nice little wooden shed outside with a console, a pair of double doors, a big armchair and an orange.

OK... I know you're waiting for someone to ask, so...

Why an orange?

Dino.

[vortexsurfer]

Oranges are good.

[Borusa]

I'm in the midst of having to give this question a lot a thought, but with a slight variation.  I'm in the (very) early stages of redesigning a room using TARDIS interior design elements.  It's an existing room in my house that I want to be able to use, rather than simply visit and show to friends.  As a result, I'm tackling the question of what would be the perfect TARDIS room to live in.  There's no question, that the control rooms in their many varieties provide the options, but it still becomes a real challenge, since the design elements have to be chosen from so many and then (hopefully) cohesively combined into a functional room.

Great topic.  It's got me thinking!

[type 83]

If speaking in reality (What I hope to build) a nice little wooden shed outside with a console, a pair of double doors, a big armchair and an orange.

OK... I know you're waiting for someone to ask, so...

Why an orange?

Dino.

Because, oranges taste good, stop you catching scurvy and fit the colour scheme!

[galacticprobe]

Because, oranges taste good, stop you catching scurvy and fit the colour scheme!

Can't argue with that. (And it is rather orange in there right now, isn't it?)

Dino.

[metrosonus]

glad to see this place still going.

I think i've changed my mind yet again. grad school is coming to close, family issues have been smoothed out, starting a new (and better paying job next year) and I would seriously like to get back to doing some filming.

I think what I would like (being built as a studio set) is a 4th Doctor-esque console and walls with perhaps, one back wall that is made out of giant reel to reel recorders, some 60's 70's looking blinking "computer" lights and an old console type TV as a scanner / computer interface.

[galacticprobe]

Hey, Met! Glad to see you're still around. I thought you'd fallen off the planet.

The easiest 4th Doctoresque console room to build would be the one from "Planet Of Evil", where the roundels are just shallow flats on the walls. (It would be the least expensive, at least... no having to vac-form roundels or fitting backlighting for them.) The other things sound more Hartnell-ish, but I could see them in a Tom Baker console room, maybe on one of the walls we never got to see on screen (as in the "fourth wall").

The console for that style of room would be nice to see built. I don't think anyone's tackled that version yet.

Anyway, nice to hear that things are going well for you, and it's really nice to have you back in action!

Dino.

[warmcanofcoke]

I have a few ideas for the series. I'd like to see roundels but maybe Bigger roundels. Ones where the companions could curl up and read a book in. It might be nice to see an arboretum on the other side of a glass window, or other parts of the ship. If we're going to have stories revolving around relationships maybe there should be a breakfast nook, or the companion's rooms could have balconies that overlook the Console room. I like large areas maybe the console room should be like an Italian courtyard or a Mezzanine.  I prefer the classic series style time rotor. I feel the floor to ceiling style is a directing mistake. I wouldn't mind if the TARDIS looked a little more like the inside had windows to sunlight with plants here and there maybe some sort or water feature. Wall mounted vases. When the Tardis gets trapped in a time corridor or shot at in the vortex I'd like to see stuff get sloshed about. Maybe the sunlight you might see would turn into darker more storm like weather ....

I like the controls from audio, and video equipment tastefully arranged as though a group of designers were working on it. I love the fadder leavers from Television Switchers - Aluminum leavers that have a T handle. Some coloured illuminated perspex domes need to be on the console. I think there should be illuminated rotary potentiometers like off a DAW (Digital Audio Work station.) In fact controls from Audio Work Stations, Fighter Jets, ..... someone in the design department needs to look through some catalogs ...... see some expensive equipment and have lots of toggle switches etc. The Tardis can attempt to provide a well kept home but the Doctor is going to be messy and track in mud and fill with clutter.

Dials, Knobs, switches, Levers.... enough controls to actually pilot a time space craft please.

*edit
found this example of a DAW on Google images

[metrosonus]

Hey, Met! Glad to see you're still around. I thought you'd fallen off the planet.

The easiest 4th Doctoresque console room to build would be the one from "Planet Of Evil", where the roundels are just shallow flats on the walls. (It would be the least expensive, at least... no having to vac-form roundels or fitting backlighting for them.) The other things sound more Hartnell-ish, but I could see them in a Tom Baker console room, maybe on one of the walls we never got to see on screen (as in the "fourth wall").

The console for that style of room would be nice to see built. I don't think anyone's tackled that version yet.

Anyway, nice to hear that things are going well for you, and it's really nice to have you back in action!

Dino.

First, thank you, sincerely. Sorry about dropping out there. Life has a way of being too much sometimes, but thankfully, it doesn't last forever and the sun does eventually come out again.

For the walls, I think I'd go with Crispin's method which is similar to that.

I would like to merge some elements from 1, 4 & 7 in both the character I'd be writing as well as the TARDIS itself. I think perhaps just one wall with two reel to reel mainframes and a computer or tv screen as a scanner would be subtle enough and add some old school eye candy. I'm not sure how I want to write the story, meaning, will I try to fit it into canon or just say it's a fan produced thing and leave it at that. I"m sure in the end it doesn't matter 

As I'm leaving my current job soon, that gave me the opportunity to clean out a few store rooms and I scored a VHS camera, some VCRs and some professional, but old editing / recording equipment. So I'd like to keep everything analog, aside from just using the PC to edit scenes together and do titles and stuff. But special effects, everything else, no photoshop or whatever. I really admired the creativity and ingenuity of the old shows and I'd like to give it a try myself. 

If we were going to go hi tech as warmcanofcoke is suggesting with his DAW controller (protools surface?) I always envisioned the control room being six sided to match the console and then on the outside of the room, there would be stations that would have more controls on them and then someone would stand there (sort of like Mr Spock I guess) do their work and then relay the information to pilot(s) which would end up at a corresponding panel directly across from the one on the wall. Given that the Doctor is sole user, he turned over those functions to the main computer and just got rid of the walls. (IMO).

Seeing more of anything on any sci fi show is always an issue of money. But I agree though, they always had all those walls and I never understood why they didn't just make rooms out of them and show more of the TARDIS. They could have put anything in the fit the Doctor's whim and in the few stories I've written, I've tried to make it sound like they live in there and it wasn't just a moving hat rack so to speak.

Considering though, the TARDIS gets it's power from the eye of harmony, they wouldn't need to make air, food ect. They'd just convert things in and out of energy states so anything that was in the TARDIS would either be mission specific equipment, odds and ends the Doctor collected over the years or what ever whimsy he or his companions have bestowed upon it.

I rally don't want the show to focus too much on relationships anymore. That's the same problem star trek ran into to me. Relationships and character development are fine if they are a subplot and even if they substantiate what is seen on screen but to me, sci fi has just become themed drama now rather than a story telling vehicle. 

[warmcanofcoke]

I still want a six sided Console I'm just saying the designers need to look through some catalogs.