In many new housing starts, home technology is approached as an afterthought or an overkill. Rarely is an architect involved in the process, to suggest home technology features that truly enhance the mood, environmental and lifestyle goals of their design. Identifying and resolving that problem is at the heart of a new book and of the show house at the recent International Builder's Show in Las Vegas, called "Home by Design."
TecHome Builder's David Weldon recently spoke with architect and author Sarah Susanka about the show house, her new book and how homebuilders can benefit from working with an architect to design home-technology packages that make the most sense for customers.
THB: Tell us about the title of your new book, and what you mean by it.
SUSANKA: The full title is Home by Design: Transforming Your House Into Home. The premise is that most people are looking for a sense of home, but we don't have any language for what that is. So we keep buying or building house after house after house and keep being disappointed when it doesn't have that feeling that we know of as home. The basic thesis of the book is that there is a way that you can identify the characteristics that go into making a place feel like home. They aren't the things that most people know to look for. What I describe in this book is what I call the architect's toolbox, and it's all the principles that we use as architects to build in that special quality—the feeling of home. They are principles that anybody can understand but that most people don't know exist. But when they see it, they say, "Oh yes, that's what I want."
THB: Who is the target reader for the book? It it the architect? The builder?" The consumer?
SUSANKA: Builders, general public, Realtors, architects. It is to help people to understand what makes for a great place. One of the biggest problems is that this profession has tended to keep this stuff to ourselves because we don't tend to describe it in words. We do it three-dimensionally. But because most people don't think three-dimensionally, they don't know how to ask for these characteristics.
The book is broken into three segments: space, light and order.
The anecdote that I start with is, when I bought my first house I was standing at the threshold of the door and I knew that was the house I wanted, before I looked at any of the things that I wanted on my list of rooms. My question to myself was, "How do I know that? What is it that I'm responding to?" It's a lot of the combination of these principles.
Taking that example, I'm standing at the threshold looking into the house, and I was looking along a diagonal to the other side of the house from the front door, and I could see a window at the far end of that view. That's a principle that I call "light to walk toward." It's not just a near-death experience. We are physiologically programmed to want to walk toward light, so architects use this all the time.
A special example that many people respond to is one I call shelter around activity. In space that you are going to be doing something in, if you can create a sense of shelter for that space, you are more likely to use it and feel comfortable there than if it has no shelter.
The third principle is order. Every architect when they start to design a house uses an organizing strategy, so that everything you are doing has some rhyme or reason to it. The house I did in Las Vegas is organized around the strategy this way—a circulation spine that winds through the house, and everything opens off of that.
THB: In terms of the home at the show in Las Vegas, how did you incorporate the elements of the book into the design?
SUSANKA: You could see just about every principle that is in the book. I didn't design it for that reason, but architects use a lot of this stuff in their work. This particular house, just by accident, embodies the vast majority of them.
THB: How do home-technology features fit into this bigger picture?
SUSANKA: It fits in seamlessly—that's the key. When you move into a house, it shouldn't look like a technology statement. It should have all of those things that we expect today, and even some things that we don't expect. They should all make life easier within the house, and they really become a part of creating the feeling of home. For example, in the house in Las Vegas, the intent was to display really simple features that would appeal to a large number of people. What is important isn't technology for technology's sake, and it isn't just technology for the technology buff. It's things that make life more enjoyable and easier within the home.
THB: What sort of home-technology offerings best enhance lifestyles versus satisfying a lust for techno-toys?
SUSANKA: My biggest recommendation is control systems. With the amount of lighting that I tend to put into my houses, I really want to have at least some simple lighting control in the main living spaces that can create a scene and a mood, and change that, without having to change 10 different switches to do so. The kitchen, the dining area and the main living space benefit from having that kind of lighting control.
THB: Are people wanting that more as homeowners?
SUSANKA: They don't usually ask for it, because most people assume it's out of their [income] brackets. If it's implemented simply, and if you're not trying to make the entire house controllable, it's very accessible. It's just that for most people it's very hard to define how much technology is enough. Often, it has been my experience that people want to do everything. But it's usually overkill, and is more expensive than the person wants to spend. The challenge is finding that edge where it's just the right amount for the customer. That is so key, and I think a large portion of the technology market gets missed because people are trying to sell more than the homeowner is going to find useful.
THB: Is the home-technology market a victim of its own good intentions? For example, it seems that so much of the presentation of home technology to customers, so much of the marketing and advertising focuses around luxury homes, designer rooms and high-end products, and that it creates the impression in the general public that this is all for the rich folks that have more money then they should.
SUSANKA: Even doing the show house, it was really a challenge to portray what most people are going to want, because the companies that were being represented there can do vastly more than that. What I asked [the product manufacturers] to do was to show not the whole nine yards, but what is a basic system that someone can put in.
THB: Is that a danger when you work with an integrator and a manufacturer, that they want to turn everything into the ultimate showcase?
SUSANKA: It's a fascinating challenge because they have a better product, and for sure they do. But it's the difference between the $5,000 version and the $50,000 version, and most people are going to go for the $5,000 version. You may have 2,000 households that would do the $5,000 version, and only five that would do the $50,000. You're going to get way more people that really understand the value of home technology at the low end.
THB: How are the changes in people's lifestyles affecting what we want to be doing with home technology?
SUSANKA: I am loving wireless technology. I think that is definitely a big benefit, to have Internet capability built into more things that we do in our lives. We are using it more and more, and the kind of integration where it is easy for homeowners to use has got to be a given now for homebuilders.
THB: Are you seeing anything that is surprising you, or anything that is unusual in what people want in terms of home technology? SUSANKA: The thing that surprises me the most has been the desire by homeowners to build in flexibility, making sure that as technology changes, you can update the house relatively easily.
THB: How does the builder fit into that picture? For example, when the consumer decides that, "Since I don't build a new house that often, or have a contractor into my existing house that often, while you're here, I don't mind spending a little extra money for something that is an insurance policy for the future. It's not something I need right now, but since you're here working anyway right now, let's do it." Are builders in sync with that line of thought?
SUSANKA: Not really. What the builder thinks of as a solution, and what I think is a solution, are usually pretty different things. I am really interested in developing a system [of prewiring] where there are regular chases at the same points in walls everywhere, and my hope is that it will be at the baseboard or at a chair rail height (using hollow baseboards or tracks for running wiring). Where we know they are, and we can take off the baseboard and there they are. That makes so much sense to me.
THB: What did you hope people would see at the show house in Las Vegas, and go away with in terms of new ideas?
SUSANKA: I am hoping that, whether we are talking about the architectural principles I am describing—the architect's tool box—or whether we're talking about electronics, that people will see that there is so much you can do with existing space. It will be a real surprise to people, especially on the architectural side, how much you can personalize and tailor a house to fit the way that you live—not by having to figuring out what style you want, but by crafting the spaces to make them more personal. Most people have no clue how to do it—what is it in you that gets engaged by these various special and lifestyle ideas.
THB: What are your thoughts for 2004 on how builders can design and construct homes that will be the best value and the best lifestyle enhancements?
SUSANKA: Along the lines of what we were discussing, architects and builders that work a lot with residential clientele will have some real insights into how to make a better house. There is a lot of thought going on in the market place now on how to do that. There are several teams of builders and architects and developers who are looking to put their heads together to come up with the best of what each of them can think of, and come up with a product that really solves a lot of the problems in the way we have built houses over the past few years.
Industry Perspective
"For most people it's very hard to define how much technology is enough. Often, it has been my experience that people want to do everything. But it's usually overkill, and is more expensive than the person wants to spend. The challenge is finding that edge where it's just the right amount for the customer. That is so key, and I think a large portion of the technology market gets missed because people are trying to sell more than the homeowner is going to find useful."