Home automation is probably the biggest innovation in design concepts for buildings that came out over the last 20 years. Thanks to it, every aspect of housekeeping could be determined and controlled automatically and remotely, or even preset in case of prolonged absence of the building/apartment’s owner.
There are several elements positively affected by home automation’s technological progress. Safety is probably the most appreciated one, and we could easily guess why: knowing that our building is secluded by external intrusions means that we can recognize in our house a totally risk-free place where we can stay, along with our family and/or loved ones.
But security issues do not represent the only feature that a potential home automation products buyer looks for. Comfort and facilities are a couple of highly demanded categories as well, when a customer approaches to house technologies for the first time. And along with them, we can include a desire of aesthetic enhancement as a further element.
Regarding this last point, in fact, we have to say that home automation has awakened a sort of renewed interest by house holders towards interior design. An issue that, until a few years ago, was typically put aside, while now it is back at the heart of the concerns of owners and lodgers.
In terms of interior design, there are many areas where home automation could make the difference. But nevertheless, there is undoubtedly a privileged one: lighting. A simple but undeniable truth that every company involved in this kind of business is aware of. Just take a look to the new products that all the top brands in this specific field – such as, e.g., multilighting.ca – have placed on the market recently. All the lighting systems, tools and even pieces of furniture are specifically (even though not exclusively) designed to be accommodated within a larger multi-system home automation apparatus.
Architects, designers and real estate investors have immediately sniffed out the bargain, and converted it in concrete action. Which means, basically, designing and building a new model of housing, able to integrate light design with all the opportunities that home automation provides for: light programming, effects, and more than everything else lighting variations according to the turn of the seasons, the moments of the day or even the lodger’s mood.
As usually happens in such cases, the luxury compartment of global real estate business has undertaken the task and the responsibility of acting as a gatekeeper for the whole sector. And as a consequence of it, a remarkable number of new buildings featuring the above mentioned amenities has been put on the market throughout the last 10 years.
The most iconic one is, without any doubt, the notorious Villa Chameleon (The Chameleon House) in Son Vida, a residential hilly suburb located behind the back of Palma de Mallorca, Spain. Currently, still on the market (the price is quite daunting for many investors), this luxury villa features a unique lighting system that allows dozens of changes and combinations, in terms of intensity, shades and color temperature in every room and even on the garden and by the poolside. A sort of pattern that many designers are trying to emulate (mostly on a smaller scale), in order to make domestic lighting evolve to a new era. Will it be real glory?