Smart Home Technology Helps Deliver Boutique Hotel-inspired Living
Working with award-winning interior designer Brian Woulfe along with lighting designer and founder of Light Fantastic Lucy Martin, IDS designed and installed a home automation system for a prime residential property in West London’s Notting Hill.
The homeowners were an American couple residing in London with their three-year-old twins. Their hectic but home-oriented lifestyles meant they wanted the interiors to feel like an inner-city sanctuary that was luxurious and comforting while providing the perfect environment to create beautiful memories as a family and when entertaining guests. Of high importance was incorporating sustainable features, hence Designed by Woulfe commissioned IDS to deliver a smart home scheme, which could optimise the house’s performance and green credentials.
Brian Woulfe, Managing Director & Founder of Designed by Woulfe, explains, “The home technology market can be quite daunting as there is so much choice. Designers need to work with specialists to find the right solution for their project and help make the clients dreams a reality. For this project, our technology choices needed to reflect our clients wish to be sustainable and greener. Together we decided on LED lighting throughout and an automated heating and cooling system to ensure that the home was sustainable in its functionality.”
As avid travellers, the end clients were keen to replicate a boutique hotel's design and feel through the interior design scheme. Brian Woulfe details, “While this meant having a refined and luxurious approach to the design choices, we also wanted to maintain a level of familiarity, functionality and real home comfort. By opting for home automation for audio, security, lighting, and heating, we ensured that not only was the home as energy efficient as possible; the automated shades gave a real boutique hotel experience in the bedrooms.”
Family Entertainment
Family time is precious to the clients, and they wanted to have a defined space that could happily entertain their children and guests. From sound bars to frame TVs, IDS programmed multi-room audio distribution allowing music to be played throughout the home, giving the clients the flexibility to control music via the keypads and have entertainment at their fingertips.
“Good lighting plus good controls are about what you don't see."
Working with lighting designer Lucy Martin's scheme, IDS created the circuits and coded key lighting scenes for use throughout the home, all controllable via Crestron keypads, placed at optimal positions around the house. Scenes included good morning, good evening, late evening, and entertainment.
Lucy Martin explains, "Good lighting plus good controls are about what you don't see. A lighting control system’s main aim is to make life easy and make light easy to use. IDS helped facilitate that for our client, and it works seamlessly. The client can walk through the house without thinking about light; it just happens when they need it. We used a standard 2700K colour temperature throughout the property. And through a combination of sensors and timed scenes, the right light is provided at the right time. For example, a pre-dimmed light is triggered upon entry if light levels are low. Here a combination of good light with easy, intuitive controls is conducive to good living and creating an inviting, homely environment – the result is magical.”
Charming, Old-world Design
Tas Kyriacou, IDS Director, explains, "We kept the keypads in the children's areas, modern and discreet opting for standard white. Whereas in the principal bedroom, living, and entertainment areas, we opted for a brass plated finish with black buttons to complement the charming, old-world design choices.”
Making Luxury Sustainable
With sustainability high on the agenda, one of the most important features of the automation design was the ALL OFF button, located at the exit. With this button, the clients can ensure a light is never left on again.
Tas Kyriacou, IDS Director comments, “The beautiful lighting scenes throughout the home add a level of elegant luxury, resulting in an opulent, fun guest experience like what you find in a luxury hotel. I think the combination of high-end design and the latest home automation platform has had a stunning effect.”
Brian concludes, “IDS’ home automation design is easy to control, allowing the client to live and entertain more sustainably. Furthermore, the scheme is futureproof. It can be added to later and makes the house more attractive to potential buyers in the future.”
Photo credit: ©Nick Smith
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