Matching Speakers to a Wooden Ceiling

“These solutions always work best when they start this conversation: How much technology does the client want, and how much do they need to balance that with the aesthetic?” says Arcenal. In this case, the client was “heavy on both,” she recalls: “This is one of our builder partners, and he knows the value of the Crestron Home OS.” The builder wanted to deploy as many technological solutions as he could while incorporating the natural textures of the desert Southwest, from weathered stone to rich woodgrains.

The builder engaged MARA Interior Design, a Scottsdale firm, which contracted a faux-finish painter. The first order of business was incorporating a wide variety of finishes to the home’s Crestron keypads, from marble to rough concrete to match individual spaces in the residence, and then the painter moved on to the in-ceiling speakers.

“The wood for this particular ceiling had been very carefully sourced,” explains Arcenal. “The builder took quite a bit of time with architects and designers to achieve a perfect look, and any disruption of that natural grain would have been a blemish.” The builder didn’t want to sacrifice a bit of audio quality — a common issue with “invisible” speakers that live underneath a wall — so exposed speaker grilles were a must.

“By collaborating with the faux painter and working carefully with Crestron’s paintable speaker grilles, he was able to match that beautiful and natural grain of the wood without sacrificing any sound quality at all,” says Arcenal.

The Lighting Elements

For most of us, the first “control interface” we interacted with in the home was the humble light switch. Lighting control and the luminaires themselves, however, have evolved to create an incredible spectrum of effects, from mimicking the rhythms of sunlight to becoming a literal part of a building’s architecture.

For some, lighting is critical to the thing they’re most passionate about — art, perhaps. A terrific example of just that can be seen in a 14,000-square-foot waterside home in Fort Myers, Florida:

Homeowner Sylvie Acovski has an extensive art collection that’s on display throughout the residence. Those pieces include original paintings, custom-built furniture, and works of glass — in fact, Acovski’s late husband has family ties to The Lalique Glass Art company in France, a firm recognized globally for its luxurious creations.

To help Acovski highlight her collections, Phil Roberts and his team at Phil’s Phancy Programming created a Crestron system that spans 200 tunable lighting zones and motorized shading for the home’s 60-foot glass walls. Controls include beautiful Horizon® keypads programmed for one-touch operation. The result is a stunning presentation that rivals some of the world’s great museums — it’s literally a live-in art gallery.

“The range of what lighting can do is immeasurable,” says Arcenal. From highlighting a painting to tuning the color temperature and brightness to perfectly match a mood or time of day, the role of lighting as a profound union of design and technology can’t be understated — but many clients aren’t truly aware of the possibilities. “That’s where an integrator can help make a huge impact — most customers ‘don’t know what they don’t know,’” says Arcenal.

Silence is Golden

Silent shading motors offer yet another element of technology that’s (hopefully) unobtrusive: While many homeowners are acutely aware that they don’t want a lot of the tech to be seen, they may not understand the steps needed to keep certain systems from being heard. Electronic equipment often needs to be cooled, and that — in addition to visual considerations — is often why those racks are tucked away where cooling fans can run without bothering anyone. (An important note: As the “guts” of gear such as audio amplifiers become ever more advanced and efficient, fanless devices are becoming more ubiquitous.)

One example of the need for what’s known as “sound isolation” — keeping audio waves inside a room and allowing zero external noise in — is the dedicated home cinema.

For certain clients, it’s the stuff that dreams are made of — and for Hollywood moguls and the like, it’s a place to view their work the way they intended. A home cinema requires its own unique planning processes, and high among them is the ability to keep audio from leaking into other floors of a home — or, in urban environments, other homes. “Enveloping oneself completely in a film that has a massive audio footprint is a wonderful experience — for those actually in the room,” says Arcenal.

“We are always encouraging our designers and architects to consult with our technology experts to plan these solutions at the earliest stages of a design,” she says. “It could be as simple as just adding some specialized insulation, or it could be a complete system of sound absorption that requires walls thicker than are commonly specified.” Simply put: When the Death Star blows up, the person in the next room shouldn’t hear it. Likewise, external sound leaking into the room can markedly dimmish the viewing experience.