How to Give Your Cyberpunk Room a Makeover

Cyberpunk is no longer science fiction. This is our reality. And DIY is its name.

If you don’t know about the science fiction cyberpunk genre I can’t tell you what it is because it’s holy wars stuff on the internet. Find authors like Philip K. Dick, Neil Stevenson and of course William Gibson. Our writers have even collaborated for you in the history of the technological apocalypse.

Buy at least one of your books. Read them; slowly. Let your mind wander deep, then come back here. You will thank me. For the rest of us, be kind to the newbie. They live in our world all the time and only now realize it. They are our relatives.

scene from the dealer's dream — *Sleep Dealer* sci-fi thriller

Due to the digital nature of cyberpunk and our lives today, it’s no surprise that people create their own fantasy worlds. It could be their home office, game room, or even a home theater room. All of these rooms are well suited for this interior design.

Cyberpunk interior design elements

Cyberpunk aesthetics can be divided into three main types: minimalist, chaotic, and retro-futuristic. Before you say there are more types than that, consider that most scenes in any cyberpunk game or movie are at least a combination of them. Mixing in elements of Asian or even ancient Egyptian culture is also often observed. You could also call it a pan-cultural look.

old car dance scene — dance scene from *Ex Machina*

All three of these types share a few elements in common: electronics, glossy and matte colors with a rare palette, repeating geometric patterns, metal, glass, ambient lighting, and automation. Lots of natural light and home automation.

These elements seem to be very common but are used in very different ways in design types. Let’s take a look at each type and a few real world examples in real people’s homes.

Minimalist Cyberpunk Room

Great cinematic and gaming examples of minimalist design can be found everywhere. Pick a cyberpunk movie, think about where the rich or the villains lived, and that’s usually your minimalist cyberpunk room. One example is Flynn’s safe room in Tron: Legacy .

Before you tell me what Throne not cyberpunk, think about it; In many cyberpunk stories, people are injecting technology into themselves. AT Throne they are embedded in the technology.

flynn throne haven

Flynn’s room inspired gDpy user on TheRPF.com to design and build his own security room Tron . Using some impressive woodworking skills and creative lighting techniques, the effect is striking. Check out the gdspy post and you can see the methods they used. Don’t forget to make some wicked cyberpunk-illuminated costumes. and wear it for full effect.

Inspired number gdspys tron flynn

If you are lucky enough to get into a real home makeover show with a big budget, you can get a style bedroom. Tron . It comes complete with a video projector, computer station, fluorescent blanket and Tron- cycle. Go full punk and make your own video projector. projector

Another source of inspiration for a clean cyberpunk look came from games. portal . Again, purists might say it’s not cyberpunk. As I already said; Holy Wars Online Trying to defeat an evil tech company and teleportation are huge tropes in the cyberpunk world. So go through it and check out these two amazing rooms inspired by portal .

First of all, it’s Ultimate portal Bedroom designed by Randy Slavey and featured on GeekDad.com. Using your DIY skills, some sweet rope lanterns, a few collectibles in portal as well as a lot of paint and patience, Slave gave his son a bedroom worthy of the child of any Aperture employee. And made all the other dads look bad in the process. A way to raise the bar, Slavey.

portal inspired room entrance

He used Wi-Fi with support for changing the color of the light to great effect. You can do the same in any cyberpunk room you create. Controlled by a smartphone app, you can initiate changes in lighting with either music or even recipes

Portal inspired wardrobe and mirror

Equally impressive is Lauren’s Local Bedroom featured on her website PortalBedroom.com. The site’s name might not be that creative, but one look at her room and you’ll know she’s a real creative deal.

Portal inspired bedrooms to panorama

Taking LED string lights and mirrors to the next level, Lauren has created some very impressive infinity mirrors. portal . And if you want to give it a try, you can connect them to an Arduino and control them with Siri.

Portal inspired bedroom panorama

Using a muted paint palette and monochromatic bedding, the feel of the room becomes real. Check out her impressive drybrush painting technique to add seams to walls. This gives a nice dull metal panel effect that evokes the atmosphere of the game very well.

minimalist cyberpunk palette

Minimalist cyberpunk design elements: a. minimalist furniture, b. LED rope lights, c. 3D textured wall panels, d. electroluminescent wire (el wire), el. Wi-Fi controlled lighting, f. Arduino controllers, Mr. geometric mirrors.

Chaotic cyberpunk room

In a computer-ordered world, chaos is all that’s left of man.

You should read it in the voice of the movie trailer. But chaos is a common thread in the world of cyberpunk. Everything is made from everything else. Pieces of it, pieces of it, soldered together, fused with insane technical knowledge, low life high tech people are taking back control of their world from the cold corporate computer rooms.

Ambient Cyberpunk Music DR34V

When you’re putting together a cyberpunk room like this, think of movies like » Blade Runner» or » Strange days» . Think of games like series Deus Ex and crackdown . Think about poor cable management and poor electronics storage. Everything is painted gray and rusty. Ambient lighting leaks from monitors everywhere. You may see old quasi-Asian advertising signs or totalitarian propaganda. This is not a clean ultra modern room. Expect to find old technology adapted to do new things.

Rick Deckard’s » Blade Runner» there is a prototype of a typical ugly cyberpunk apartment. Ironically, much of its interior design was inspired by famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s Ennis House. Strange because it was built in 1924. But that shouldn’t come as a surprise as it has also been used for other «dark» films such as «Thirteenth Floor» and » Black Rain» .

Ennis House Front View 2005

If you’re trying to achieve this look, try your hand at 3D printing and mold making. You can download the file for 3D printing tiles Blade Runner Ennis House and then watch the video below to see one way to shape it. You can then cast as many tiles as you want into the concrete or plaster. Just make sure to paint them dull gray for authenticity.

Deckard’s apartment is probably the most well-documented cyberpunk space ever. The group of people at PropSummit spent most of the year documenting every item in Deckard’s apartment, often finding real world equivalents. For a better demonstration, check out Interiorator’s collection of screenshots by Blade Runner .

Blade Runner Deckard's apartment interior

If that’s not enough, how about a 3D walkthrough of Deckard’s apartment? Software engineer Quentin Lengele created a series of these VR playthroughs. You can even use your Oculus Rift and try it out on the BR9732.com website.

As you build your Blade Runner room, be sure to set up a DIY Raspberry Pi home theater system. turn your Raspberry Pi into a home theater system with a 12-hour surround sound cycle from Deckard’s Apartment.

For real chaotic cyberpunk interior design, go to a manufacturer in Germany called C-Base. It’s, well… just look at it. A thing of beauty? Eyesore? I go with the beauty thing, although it attacks my obsessive need for order.

Their own description is: «… C-Base is a space station that crashed 4.5 billion years ago in the center of Berlin-Mitte.» Hackaday.io adds that «Nerds, artists and digital activists started a society to revolutionize this in 1995.» Fair enough.

C-Base Hacker Space Germany Collage

Another great thing about this space is that it is very functional. They have 3D printers, a homemade vacuum forming table, a book scanner, a piezo controlled LED staircase, what they call a «microcontroller zoo» full of Atmel, MSP430, and ARM based microcontrollers to work with. and a brainwave scanner. You read it right.

Chaotic palette of cyberpunk design elements

Chaotic cyberpunk design elements: a. contemporary orange underwire leather armchair, b. invisible glow of daylight in dark paint, c. concrete wall mural wallpaper, d. black lamps, el. metal finish spray paint, hammered, F. Blade Runner 47″ x 35″ Huge Deckard poster, d. modern black cloud chair

Retro Future Cyberpunk Room

Retro futurism is what people who grew up before 1970 were told there would be a future. You know, laser guns, flying cars and living on the moon. Design Lines — From 1920s Art Deco to 1930s Buck Rogers and the 1960s lost in space . Often the popular design of the culture of those days is presented in large numbers. I think they thought we wouldn’t change much even if technology changed.

Planes of the future

You will find cinematic examples of this image in films such as the Japanese film K–20: «Legend of the Mask», filmed in an alternate year of 1949. Or in the 1998 movie Dark City» which can be called a cross Memento and metropolis . Look at games like Gatling Gears or epic series bioshock and Fallout .

Fallout 4 gas station scene

All these mediums have a certain film noir. feel and rebel against technology with technology. There is always an ordinary person with above average knowledge and skills, using everything he can find to fight the corporate or government machine.

bioshock delight banners

The devices tend to be more mechanical in nature with some electrical and electronic controls, however they tend to avoid the microcontroller which is the backbone of all computers. The exception is, of course, Fallout . This is a world where nuclear and electronic technologies rival or even surpass our own. But there’s more Tomorrowland feel about everything.

Fallout 4: Mr. Handy in the kitchen

If you’re going to feel cozy at Vault-Tec, why not start with a fresh batch of Nuka Cola? You will need courage. There are literally several billion tutorials on how to make your own, from recipes to creating bottle labels. This video shows you how to make Nuka Cola Classic Classic and Quantum.

After all this, you will need to sit down and just watch a few spins. This DIY thing can really take it out of you. Of course, sitting on the new shiny bottle cap-shaped bar stools from Nuka Cola and Sunset Sarsaparilla would have made it that much better. Luckily, you can buy bottle caps already made. You just need to dress them up a bit.

Nuka Cola Sunset Sarsaparilla Bar Stools

Once that’s done, you need a place to store those sweet, sweet things. Examine the Coca Cola mini cooler that looks like old fashioned vending machines. Then use your stool making skills and label it as your personal Nuka Cola dispenser. Or if you have the money, find a full size soda bottle vending machine and do the same. This is what Thor Amundson did.

Nuka Cola vending machine