Get Wired exhibit showcases high-tech innovations that blend seamlessly into your life
Joanne Blain
Sun
Vancouver Sun / Designer Erik Lauzon of Vancouver’s Konstruk Design put together the Get Wired display at the Vancouver Home and Interior Design Show at BC Place to showcase some of the high-tech innovations more and more of his clients are demanding in their homes. Photograph by : Peter Battistoni
Vancouver Sun / The high-tech bedroom in the Get Wired exhibit at the Vancouver Home and Interior Design Show at BC Place. Photograph by : Peter Battistoni
The high-tech home is here, but don’t expect it to look like something the Jetsons might live in. There are no robot maids dusting the furniture and not a flying saucer in sight.
In fact, a lot of the technological innovations in the Get Wired exhibit at the Vancouver Home and Interior Design Show, which runs through Sunday at B.C. Place, are hidden in plain sight.
Look in the bathroom mirror, for instance, and what you’ll see at first is just your own smiling face. But flip a switch and the mirror turns into a television so that you can watch your favourite show while you brush your teeth.
The microwave in the contemporary kitchen appears fairly ordinary, but it’s also got a secret. It has a scanning wand that can read the bar code on a frozen entree or other prepared food and automatically program in the correct cooking time and temperature, without your having to push a button.
Designer Erik Lauzon of Vancouver’s Konstruk Design put together the Get Wired display to showcase some of the high-tech innovations more and more of his clients are demanding in their homes.
Those homeowners fall into two camps, he says — “the ones who want to show off all that technology and make sure everyone sees it, and the total opposite, people who want the technology but will do everything in their power to hide it.”
So if you’re in the home of one of the latter of Lauzon’s clients, don’t be surprised if the bookcases or the walls start singing to you. He can disguise stereo speakers as books or bookends, and even embed them in the walls so seamlessly that you can’t tell they’re there — you can even paint over them.
“If you have a character home in Shaughnessy, you really don’t want to see speakers or any of that stuff,” he says.
And that’s just the beginning, says Stan Strenger of North Vancouver‘s Smart Home Shop, which teamed up with Lauzon to create the Get Wired exhibit.
“If you can dream it up, we can probably do it,” he says.
Worried about being stuck at the office when you’ve got a domestic crisis and desperately need to let someone into your house? Strenger can set up a system that will allow you to turn off your security system and open the door to let them in — and then reset the system and lock the door when they leave.
You can be energy-conscious but come back to a comfortable house by remotely turning on the heat and the lights before you arrive — you can even turn on the oven and start dinner.
But rule-breaking teenagers beware: Not only can homeowners get a system that lets them keep tabs on home-alone kids from afar via cameras installed around the house, they can also get a good night’s sleep without wondering whether or not the little rascals tried to sneak in after curfew.
“We can have the system send you an e-mail saying ‘this door was opened at 1:04 in the morning,'” Strenger says.
But let’s give the kids a break. Get Wired showcases lots of innovations they’ll love, such as a centralized media system that lets you consolidate your CDs, MP-3 files and DVDs on one server and then play them in any room of the house.
We bring it all to a central point in the house and you can distribute it out from there,” Strenger says. That means you can listen a cello concerto in the den while your kids are tuning into hip-hop in the rec room, with everyone controlling their own selection from a touch screen or a hand-held remote.
In the kitchen, you can watch TV or a DVD, access the internet or listen to the radio via a flip-down screen and a waterproof keyboard. “A lot of people who cook like it, because if they spill something, they don’t have to worry about the keyboard,” he says.
Lauzon incorporated all these innovations in a contemporary show suite featuring Italian-made Mesons kitchen cabinets, Ecosmart fireplaces and furnishings by Koolhaus and Flavour Furniture.
in this house, from furniture to accessories,” he says. George and Judy Jetson would surely approve.
© The Vancouver Sun 2007
