Episode 94: Designing Healthier, Smarter Homes

The future of home design isn’t about adding more technology—it’s about creating healthier places to live. Join Doug Weinstein, Editor-in-Chief of Technology Designer magazine, as he shares insights from some of the world’s most innovative homes and explains how better lighting, cleaner air, healthier materials and thoughtful design are changing the way we build.

Listen to “Ep 94: Designing Smarter, Healthier Homes” on Spreaker.

You will also find “Measure Twice, Cut Once” on iTunes, Spotify, Spreaker, and on HAVAN’s YouTube channel.

DOUG WEINSTEIN, Editor-in-Chief + Partner, Technology Designer Magazine.

Doug Weinstein has been a leading voice in the world of performance homes for well over a decade and a 30+ year voice in the consumer technology industry. He serves each year as a Judge for the prestigious Consumer Technology Association’s CES Innovations Awards and is recognized as a subject matter expert on Smart Cities, Energy Transition and Sustainability issues.

As the Editor-in-Chief at Technology Designer Magazine, Doug guides the editorial vision and overall direction of the brand. He focuses on telling clear, meaningful stories about the evolving relationship between design and technology. His goal is simple, as he wants to help professionals stay informed, inspired and better equipped to create performance homes that are beautiful, functional and future ready.

In 2001, Doug founded, and was the Executive Director for the 14 years of the Elf Foundation, a non-profit that has created over 90 ‘Room of Magic’ theaters in Children’s Hospitals across North America.

Listen and like for your chance to win a gas BBQ compliments of our Podcast Partner FortisBC.

MTCO Ep 94: Technology + Home Design

00:00:00,260 –> 00:00:02,080 [Doug]

carved out of limestone a room that’s called the Oracle Chamber, and they were able to chant in this room and project sounds throughout the necropolis when they did their burial ceremonies.

So if 5,000-year-old Neolithic people could master acoustics, we don’t think it’s asking too much today for architects and builders to master them in today’s homes.

00:00:30,440 –> 00:00:37,040 [Mike]

In all fairness, none of those Neolithic people were looking for open concept floor plans, so that does have that impact.

00:00:39,240 –> 00:01:01,550 [Mike]

[upbeat music] Our guest today is really exciting because this is not just a colleague and a friend, but this is someone who has an impressive presence in a bunch of different industries. Of course, the editor-in-chief of Technology Designer magazine, written for and by the design build community with an emphasis on performance homes. From wellness to architecture to intelligent lighting, from clean air to automated window treatments, you’re invited to explore the world where technology meets design. You guys came up with that, where technology meets design. About 17,000 copies worldwide, mostly to architects, builders, interior designers, and luxury partners. So we’re about to have a really fun conversation.

 

00:01:21,120 –> 00:01:31,880 [Jennifer-Lee]

Yeah. Today we have Doug Weinstein, and I’m really excited to… Mike’s told me so much about you, so [chuckles] I’m like, I can’t wait to get into it. Good things.

00:01:31,880 –> 00:01:32,480 [Mike]

Good.

00:01:32,480 –> 00:01:35,360 [Jennifer-Lee]

Unless maybe he exaggerated some stories, I’m not sure.

00:01:35,360 –> 00:01:35,400 [Mike]

Never.

00:01:35,400 –> 00:01:39,860 [Jennifer-Lee]

But, I think you’re our first international guest.

 

00:01:39,860 –> 00:01:57,080 [Mike]

Yeah. So most of the people we’ve had on the show have been amazingly talented builders, designers, obviously groups like the Phoenix House and everybody else. We’re really excited because, with your perspective, we’re going to get a 20,000-foot view. Most of the time we’re on the ground. So this is where the magic starts to happen.

00:01:57,080 –> 00:02:06,640 [Jennifer-Lee]

And where magic starts to happen right now is, I’m going to ask you, I have not done this before. It’s like you’re getting a Q&A in a police station. [laughs]

00:02:06,640 –> 00:02:07,420 [Mike]

Yeah.

00:02:07,420 –> 00:02:10,820 [Jennifer-Lee]

We’re going to get to know you. We’re going to do rapid fire.

00:02:10,820 –> 00:02:13,090 [Mike]

So when you’re done, you’re going to go fingerprint him? Is that what we’re doing?

00:02:13,090 –> 00:02:15,080 [Jennifer-Lee]

[laughs] Yeah, we’re going to fingerprint him. Yeah.

00:02:15,080 –> 00:02:17,440 [Mike]

Take your picture, you get to be on the news.

00:02:17,440 –> 00:02:20,160 [Jennifer-Lee]

You know, we should do a lie detector test. That would be fun.

00:02:20,160 –> 00:02:20,920 [Mike]

Probably not.

00:02:20,920 –> 00:02:26,220 [Jennifer-Lee]

Okay, here we go. I kind of already hinted, it’s not here in Vancouver, but where is home base?

00:02:27,680 –> 00:02:30,180 [Doug]

Northern Colorado in the Rocky Mountains.

00:02:30,180 –> 00:02:32,260 [Jennifer-Lee]

What type of home do you live in?

00:02:32,260 –> 00:02:33,740 [Doug]

I live in a performance home.

00:02:33,740 –> 00:02:37,480 [Jennifer-Lee]

There we go. Home office or commute to office?

00:02:37,480 –> 00:02:38,760 [Doug]

Home office.

00:02:38,760 –> 00:02:42,240 [Jennifer-Lee]

Well, you got a fancy home, so… Your go-to breakfast.

00:02:43,800 –> 00:02:46,160 [Doug]

Cottage cheese with blueberries.

00:02:46,160 –> 00:02:48,380 [Jennifer-Lee]

Oh. Mode of transportation.

00:02:49,420 –> 00:02:49,840 [Doug]

Bicycle.

00:02:50,920 –> 00:02:52,880 [Jennifer-Lee]

Your favorite office pet.

00:02:55,580 –> 00:03:00,460 [Doug]

Sam. Actually, Dixon Chevalier is my beagle.

00:03:00,460 –> 00:03:08,960 [Jennifer-Lee]

Oh, I was going to say, what is that? [laughs] Working at your desk in ambient light or natural light?

00:03:08,960 –> 00:03:10,040 [Doug]

Combination.

00:03:10,040 –> 00:03:13,360 [Jennifer-Lee]

Oh. Favorite architecture style.

00:03:13,360 –> 00:03:13,680 [Doug]

Modern.

00:03:15,100 –> 00:03:17,920 [Jennifer-Lee]

Yoga, Pilates, or the gym?

00:03:17,920 –> 00:03:18,720 [Doug]

None.

00:03:18,720 –> 00:03:18,740 [Jennifer-Lee]

We’re getting-

00:03:18,740 –> 00:03:20,579 [Doug]

Bicycle and hiking.

00:03:20,580 –> 00:03:24,880 [Jennifer-Lee]

There we go. We’re getting deep here. Favorite new technology feature seen in a home.

00:03:26,060 –> 00:03:27,580 [Doug]

Intelligent lighting.

00:03:27,580 –> 00:03:34,980 [Jennifer-Lee]

Hmm. Favorite neighborhood and why? This is probably geared to Colorado, unless you have a favorite one in Vancouver.

00:03:34,980 –> 00:03:35,940 [Doug]

Favorite neighborhood?

00:03:35,940 –> 00:03:36,100 [Jennifer-Lee]

Yeah.

00:03:37,320 –> 00:03:41,160 [Doug]

Well, my neighborhood, it’s called Harvest Junction.

00:03:41,160 –> 00:03:41,720 [Jennifer-Lee]

Great name.

00:03:41,720 –> 00:03:44,460 [Doug]

And I live on Western Sky Circle.

00:03:44,460 –> 00:03:44,940 [Jennifer-Lee]

Oh.

00:03:44,940 –> 00:03:59,820 [Doug]

Looking directly from my driveway at Mount Long, which my town is named after, Longmont. It’s the northernmost tallest mountain in the Rocky Mountains, over 14,000 feet.

00:03:59,820 –> 00:04:00,940 [Jennifer-Lee]

Sounds magical.

00:04:00,940 –> 00:04:01,800 [Doug]

It is.

00:04:01,800 –> 00:04:08,480 [Mike]

So let’s talk about the magazine first, because I think a lot of our viewers are not as familiar with it as perhaps they should be.

You talk about where performance meets purpose. Can you talk to us a little about the magazine? What was the impetus to start it, and really, what is the focus of the magazine, and why would we want to invest our time reading it and getting-

00:04:28,560 –> 00:04:28,760 [Doug]

Yeah

00:04:28,760 –> 00:04:29,560 [Mike]

… getting into it?

00:04:29,560 –> 00:05:04,700 [Doug]

Good question. So for the past approximately 20 years or so, I’ve been really focused on what we call energy transition, which is the obvious move away from fossil fuels into non-fossil fuels for our buildings, homes, and commercial buildings, and also smart city planning. Singapore, I’ve been following, and it’s an amazing city. So you look at infrastructure of a major city, your energy usage, mass transportation, how you move people around, green areas, and

Singapore is a Disneyland of combining nature, but also advanced technologies that powers this city that you don’t see, and you don’t even recognize where that technology is. So [clears throat] some years ago, maybe 15 years ago, a friend of mine who’s an architect was the co-chair of the AIA, the American Institution for Architects. He was co-chair of the 2030 Committee, and that 2030 Committee challenged all architects in the United States that by 2030, all buildings, commercial and residential, would be architected to be net zero energy.

And that got me to thinking about, well, how would you do that? And so the leaders have been what was known as high performance buildings. These are commercial buildings, 100-story big buildings And with the advent of advanced LED lighting and the move away from fossil fuels to an all-electric building, they gravitated to these technologies and the sciences behind them because they would save millions of dollars a year in energy cost. Byproduct of these buildings was that you would have clean air as one of the basic fundamentals of what’s called a passive design of these buildings. Now, they didn’t go around telling the people who leased office space from them, “Oh, we have clean air, hospital-grade air in these buildings.” They were really motivated by saving energy and saving money.

So years ago, I started to tell my partners in our businesses,

“Hey, this is going to come into the residential market. Why wouldn’t homes want to have net zero energy and save on energy money over the course of your house and also have hospital-grade quality air in their homes?” And so we saw what we call a white space in the market. No one was covering the technology and the science behind these performance buildings. Now, our background in our companies, we come from the world of consumer technology, so we weren’t afraid of this technology. And me, as a scientist, I’m not afraid of looking at the science behind some of these technologies and fundamental building blocks of these homes.

So we created, decided, let’s go eat that space up. Let’s create a magazine. We had a publishing division in one of our companies, so we know how to do magazines. We were building websites at the time, so let’s build a website. And then let’s go out and talk to architects and builders and interior designers and property developers and scientists and long-form journalism, interview them and say, “How did you come up with this smart paint for a home that absorbs air pollution in your home?

And how do you build building materials on the outside of the home that are fire-resistant so my home doesn’t catch on fire?”

So the name comes from one of the many domains that I buy as a hobby.

And years ago, our industry that I come from has the acronym CEDIA. It’s the Custom Electronics Design and Integration Association. These are the smart home professionals who come in and put smart home integration into an estate. And for years, they called themselves custom integrators, which I always said, “Don’t use the word custom,” because as a homeowner, custom means it’s expensive, and it’s going to break, and then it’s going to cost me 10 times as much to replace. And they were systems integrators, and I thought that was too techie. And at a convention, somebody asked me, “Doug, what do you think?” And I said, “Well, you’ve got the architectural designer. You’ve got the interior designer. You have the landscape designer. Aren’t you guys the technology designer?” And everyone went, “Oh, that’s a great name.” So I went up to my room, got out my computer and bought the domain, technologydesigner.com.

So 10 years ago, when we formed the magazine, my partner said, “Well, what are we going to call it?” And I looked up my domains, and I said, “Hey, how about Technology Designer?” And one of my partners said, “You mean where technology meets design? Write that down.” That’s our trademark tagline. So in a nutshell, we want to explain to the architect what’s going on from the builder perspective, the interior design perspective, and we want the builder to know about the architect’s perspective. Because to build these homes, it takes, I hate to say it takes a village, but it takes a team, a design team. So that’s the genesis of TD.

00:10:12,440 –> 00:10:35,020 [Jennifer-Lee]

Yeah. And you guys hit on something really important that I think a lot of times something that we talk about on this podcast when it comes to net zero homes, passive homes, is a lot of people think that your home has to be ugly looking or not have state-of-the-art stuff to be healthy, to help out the environment. Everyone just thinks like, “Oh, they’re taking away all our fun.”

00:10:35,020 –> 00:10:36,380 [Doug]

Just the opposite, actually.

00:10:36,380 –> 00:10:37,900 [Jennifer-Lee]

But yeah, there’s more fun. [chuckles]

00:10:37,900 –> 00:10:40,100 [Doug]

No, more fun. So here’s a passive home. I’m sure your audience knows that. But a passive home is a home that the building envelope, that’s your walls and your ceiling and the floor, that’s all wrapped tight. And we use three times as much insulation in the walls. And what that does is it doesn’t allow your energy to bleed out. So here’s an example everyone knows up here in Canada. In the wintertime, you’ve already spent money and heated your air to 76 degrees in your home. Go up to a window and put your hand near that window. And what do you feel? You feel-

00:11:13,260 –> 00:11:14,180 [Jennifer-Lee]

You feel wind

00:11:14,180 –> 00:11:36,990 [Doug]

… you feel wind and cold air. So what’s happening is the heated air you paid money for is now going outside. The cold air is coming inside. You are bleeding energy between the building cladding material. So a passive house wraps the home, and your energy temperature stays in the mid-70s all year round.

00:11:36,990 –> 00:11:38,940 [Jennifer-Lee]

And still have products that make it look nice too.

00:11:38,940 –> 00:11:40,180 [Doug]

Well, here’s how it looks nice.

00:11:41,400 –> 00:11:53,100 [Doug]

Along this whole journey, one of my other hobbies, which really is geeky, but it’s cool, is advances in the glazing industry. So glazing is windows and doors

And now we have huge windows. And so you’ve gone into commercial buildings and hotels, and you see these 30-foot tall, big, huge windows. Those windows are now in our homes. And so this is a sub-segment of architecture called wellness architecture, where they are bringing in the outdoor environment into your home. And you don’t have to slide the door open for indoor, outdoor. You actually have these huge windows that you can look out into nature. And so these homes are actually fabulous homes. They all have natural materials on the inside. I was just over this morning with Mike at the Phoenix home, and they have beautiful wooden walls and interiors. And the homes look very organic and bonding with the outside. They’re actually gorgeous homes to live in.

00:12:53,860 –> 00:12:58,570 [Mike]

We have spent a lot of time talking, you and I, [clears throat] as well as you and I-

00:12:58,570 –> 00:12:58,570 [Doug]

[laughs]

00:12:58,570 –> 00:13:02,180 [Mike]

… in previous episodes about wellness in the home.

 

00:13:02,180 –> 00:13:03,200 [Doug]

Mm-hmm.

00:13:03,200 –> 00:13:48,440 [Mike]

We spent a lot of time talking about specifically what aspects of wellness, water, air, light, sound. We don’t spend enough time talking about the benefits, and I think you’ve done a very, very good job of explaining the benefits, and I’d like you to walk me through a day in the life of your home. Because what you talk about and what we’re talking about here, you put your money where your mouth is. You’re not just talking about it, you’re living it. So talk to me about a day in the life of your home, specifically about the benefits of having that clean water and that clean air, and how those things make you feel. Because I think as consumers, we’re looking, okay, we can build a bigger house that might be a little bit more showy or a healthier house, and we tend to go towards the first one because we don’t truly understand the benefits of the second one. So let’s fix that once and for all today.

00:13:48,440 –> 00:13:49,420 [Doug]

All right. So in my house, when I wake up [clears throat] and I leave my master bedroom, my house knows it’s me, and the house knows to… Well, actually, let’s start a little bit earlier. A half an hour before I wake up, my home heats up two degrees. I’ll get to the end of the night, chilling it down two degrees.

00:14:12,169 –> 00:14:15,440 [Mike]

So for our Canadian listeners and viewers, that’s about five degrees.

00:14:15,440 –> 00:14:15,940 [Doug]

Okay.

00:14:15,940 –> 00:14:16,020 [Mike]

[laughs]

00:14:16,020 –> 00:14:31,140 [Doug]

Five degrees Celsius. So my home starts to heat up, and then when I wake up and go in to brush my teeth, the light in my bathroom turns on, and it goes to the blue end of the light spectrum. [clears throat] My brain tells my pineal gland, which is in the base of my skull, “Let’s pump in some serotonin into his body.”

00:14:39,430 –> 00:14:39,440 [Mike]

Bedtime.

00:14:39,440 –> 00:14:41,760 [Doug]

And it starts to wake me up.

00:14:41,760 –> 00:14:42,540 [Mike]

Or wake your… Or this is your morning. [laughs]

 

00:14:42,540 –> 00:14:43,320 [Doug]

Yeah, serotonin.

So, and then from my home, I go downstairs. It knows it’s me because of the sensor in the ground and knows my weight, and it turns on my classical music station. It lights my pathway down to the kitchen. It knows where I’m going, which is the espresso machine. So my house is already set up to set me up for a good morning. I don’t have to touch anything. I don’t have to talk to my house. And so through the day, because of a passive design, you have to bring in air into your house. You’re living in an envelope, a sealed envelope. And so my house brings in air, and it runs through a filtration system, so I’m getting clean air. My house also has what’s known as energy recovery ventilation. As I breathe out carbon monoxide, which is a poison, my house is then ventilating and taking that out of my house. So it’s circulating your air in your house. So throughout the day, my lights change from the blue end of the spectrum.

My shades will open up. I’ll bring in natural light, which you need. I’ve got big glazing material windows, and I’m looking out at my bunny rabbits in the backyard, and I’m feeling really good. And then throughout the day, at the end of the day, just the opposite happens. A couple of hours before I go to bed, my temperature goes down two degrees. My lights go to the red dim light, like old incandescent lamps. And it sets me up, my brain, to say, “Ooh, Doug’s going to go to bed pretty soon.” And then when I lay down, my pineal gland says, “Pump out that melatonin.”

00:16:20,140 –> 00:16:20,490 [Mike]

Mm-hmm.

00:16:20,490 –> 00:16:47,720 [Doug]

“Let’s put Doug to sleep.” And so here’s the bottom line of these homes, which we didn’t realize this for three or four years in reporting on this. Never dawned on us that the biggest benefit of these homes is that the number one thing you can do in your life for your health, more important than your diet, more important than your exercises, is get eight hours of deep sleep every night. And these homes, by their very nature, are putting you in… Everyone has a thermostat you can control. You can turn your temperature up and down today. Do it yourself. You can put blackout shades in to keep light out of your bedroom. You can get dim to warm lighting. It’s pretty common today. So these homes are actually set up. And then if you go the extra step, which we’ve had in a couple homes, is a whole home purified water system.

00:17:15,480 –> 00:17:16,180 [Mike]

Yeah.

 

00:17:16,180 –> 00:17:20,800 [Doug]

So this, I don’t care where you get your water from. I don’t care how good it is. Mike’s-

00:17:20,800 –> 00:17:23,010 [Mike]

We brag about our water here in Vancouver. [laughs]

00:17:23,010 –> 00:17:26,190 [Doug]

And Mike’s been telling me you have perfect water, but I would say-

00:17:26,190 –> 00:17:27,640 [Mike]

Nearly perfect water

00:17:27,640 –> 00:17:29,500 [Doug]

… take some water, put it in a jar, send it to a laboratory locally, I’m sure there’s one in Vancouver, and have your water tested.

00:17:35,870 –> 00:17:35,879 [Mike]

Oh, no, I don’t want to.

00:17:35,880 –> 00:17:37,030 [Doug]

And then come back and say-

00:17:37,030 –> 00:17:37,470 [Mike]

No, don’t ruin it for me

00:17:37,470 –> 00:18:01,464 [Doug]

… “Oh my goodness.” So, but here’s the thing on the built environment in the home. If you look at homes here in Vancouver, now you live in a fairly expensive part of the world, actually, and your homes are probably selling from anywhere from $1,200 to $2,400 a square foot. So if you look at the built environment per square foot

That’s a lot per square foot. A whole house water system is approximately $1 US dollar per square foot. So if you have a 3,000 square foot home, it’s $3,000 to turn your home into a complete hospital quality better water than you’ve ever had out of a bottle or a can. And who doesn’t want to live in that environment with clean air and water?

00:18:28,204 –> 00:18:29,784 [Jennifer-Lee]

No more Brita filters. [chuckles]

 

00:18:29,784 –> 00:18:32,754 [Mike]

No more of these plastic bottles we throw in the trash can.

00:18:32,754 –> 00:18:33,354 [Doug]

No, actually, they are Brita filters.

00:18:33,354 –> 00:18:33,354 [Jennifer-Lee]

Oh, they are Brita filters. [laughs]

00:18:33,354 –> 00:18:36,084 [Doug]

They’re giant Brita filters. There is carbon involved, and they are Brita filters-

00:18:38,184 –> 00:18:38,194 [Jennifer-Lee]

Okay

00:18:38,194 –> 00:18:39,764 [Doug]

… is what they are. They use the same coconut-

00:18:42,044 –> 00:18:42,444 [Jennifer-Lee]

Oh

00:18:42,444 –> 00:18:43,973 [Doug]

… husk that are charred-

00:18:43,973 –> 00:18:44,634 [Jennifer-Lee]

Never mind. [laughs]

00:18:44,634 –> 00:19:01,424 [Doug]

… for the carbon material. There’s different technologies on how you filter water, but as we reported on all of these and backed them up with the science and technology, we came to believe that, well, shouldn’t this be a human right?

Shouldn’t children who grow up and live their lives in this home have clean air and clean water and perfect acoustics? And another thing about wellness, here’s acoustics. This is huge. Most people’s homes don’t have enough insulation in them, or the windows are just single-pane windows. And what you hear throughout the day in your home is you hear the traffic noise outside, you hear the lawnmower, you hear the plane coming over the head. You’re trying to get deep sleep, and a car drives by. You hear your house, you hear the water running through your plumbing, and you hear your HVAC system. You live in a very, very noisy environment. As to how most all 98%-plus homes are. So by the nature of a passive design with extra insulation in the walls, you now have a completely dampened home. And what we always ask is, what do you want to fill it with? How about music?

00:20:04,144 –> 00:20:04,384 [Jennifer-Lee]

Mm.

00:20:05,864 –> 00:20:39,084 [Doug]

How about the sounds of nature, whatever? So when you talk about wellness to us, we look at two terms. We talk about health, where it’s measured by a medical institute or a university, and all of our articles are vetted rigorously. And we talk about living longer, healthier lives. And we know what causes early onset dementia, asthma, and we know it’s the buildings that we reside in, our homes and office buildings. Wellness, to us, is more about ambience. It’s more about the vibe of the home and the aura that’s created when you can paint the canvas of one of these homes with music, which I have classical music playing in the background as the soundtrack of my life. It’s always in the background in my home. So wellness combines now today with neuroesthetics and biophilic design. Furniture, you’ll notice, is getting all rounded-

00:21:10,724 –> 00:21:11,204 [Jennifer-Lee]

Mm

00:21:11,204 –> 00:21:25,924 [Doug]

… and curved, and there are more natural fibers. There are more walls now that are wooden. There’s a lot of design elements you can see in the modern home, no matter if it’s, again, temporary or modern, traditional. All of these play to the mind and how you live and breathe in the home.

00:21:32,064 –> 00:21:42,204 [Jennifer-Lee]

And the way the products are made, too, because I would assume a lot of the products you put in the home are not your traditional products that people have purchased in the past that off-gas, which is not great for your health either.

00:21:42,204 –> 00:21:51,924 [Doug]

Yeah, VOCs, volatile organic compounds. And so most interior designers, everyone that I’ve ever met, and I’ve met thousands of them, they all know what VOCs are.

 

00:21:53,664 –> 00:22:02,344 [Doug]

But interior designers, I think, know about VOCs and not to put them in, and they are getting more organic, what’s called neuroesthetics, types of designs that calm the brain and/or frequencies, audio frequencies. So we are doing an upcoming article in our spring issue, and we talk about a underground necropolis in Malta, which 5,000 years ago, it’s the oldest Neolithic burial chamber ever found on Earth. And in this chamber, 5,000 years ago, a Neolithic tribe that lived on Malta carved out of limestone a room that’s called the Oracle Chamber. And they were able to chant in this room and project sounds throughout the necropolis when they did their burial ceremonies. So if 5,000-year-old Neolithic people could master acoustics, we don’t think it’s asking too much today for architects and builders to master them in today’s homes.

00:23:10,804 –> 00:23:17,404 [Mike]

In all fairness, none of those Neolithic people were up for open concept floor plans, so that does have that impact.

00:23:18,804 –> 00:23:21,884 [Jennifer-Lee]

Well, [laughs] and I was like, you’re speaking Mike’s language of music. I could see you salivating over there. You’re like, “Oh, yeah, this is awesome.”

00:23:26,614 –> 00:23:38,204 [Mike]

But no, I talk about this all the time. The designers I work with decorate spaces. People like us decorate the silence. And there is enough science-

00:23:38,204 –> 00:23:38,624 [Doug]

Agreed

00:23:38,624 –> 00:23:59,324 [Mike]

… from people like Dr. Mark Leviton about the impact of music on our health, our happiness, our relationships, even the amount of intimacy we have in our lives. So yeah, you’re speaking my language, not because I’m passionate about music. It has nothing to do with it. I’m passionate about feeling good in my home, and I’m passionate about everyone in my life being able to feel the same way in their home.

00:23:59,324 –> 00:24:06,388 [Doug]

Right. Well, they all interact. The music is supporting the interior design’s layering of design within the home, who is supporting the architect’s initial design, and then the builder who actually put all the building together. Think about this. It’s the last labor-intensive endeavor that mankind does, building homes.

00:24:21,888 –> 00:24:31,108 [Jennifer-Lee]

And we touched a little bit about it, and we’re going to do more of it after the break, but lighting is significant as well and helps it tie all in together.

00:24:33,108 –> 00:26:00,988 [Jennifer-Lee]

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00:26:02,168 –> 00:26:08,658 [Mike]

All right, we’re back, and we’re going to start digging a little deeper into some of these homes. But before we do that, we chatted about something very briefly, and I think we went past it too quickly. I know that smart lights are lights that are enough to smartly learn how I live and adapt. Smart shades, the same thing. Smart speakers, the same thing. Explain to our listeners what smart paint is, please.

00:26:26,488 –> 00:26:26,628 [Doug]

Well, I probably have a different opinion than most technology people you’re going to talk to. I don’t believe homes are smart. Manufacturers build products that you can program.

The house itself isn’t smart. But let’s talk about lighting, because lighting is fundamentally the number one biggest impact that you can create in a home. So the two biggest things that are happening today in light is what’s known as warm dim. They are lights that, during the day, skew towards the blue end of the spectrum, and in the evening, they can dim down and give you that old incandescent light vibe. And then we have color-tunable lighting, led by the legendary Ketra-

 

00:27:11,308 –> 00:27:11,518 [Jennifer-Lee]

Oh, yeah

00:27:11,518 –> 00:27:14,328 [Doug]

… which is owned by Lutron. And so here’s the brief on what’s cool about color tunable. Three or four years ago, when it got really popular, people were turning their homes into Las Vegas casinos, turning the lights to purple or blue or green, and people got over that very rapidly. But here’s how it works. So if I have a blue sofa, let’s say Ethan Allen blue, which is a famous color in the design world, and I shine a LED light on it, all designers go, “Oh my God, that looks really great.”

And I use this in demos for designers, and I say, “Oh my goodness, I’ve got my color tuned to orange,” and I hold up my iPad with a color wheel, and I say, “Let’s turn it to blue.”

The light now changes. It’s still white light, but it changes and pulls the blues out of the fabric, and it literally leaps off, and you go, “Oh my goodness.” Same with artwork. When you light artwork properly, like in a museum, they tune those color-tunable lights to bring out certain colors that are dominant in those. So, lighting is unbelievable. It’s expensive right now, admittedly, but here’s my opinion. Here’s how my house is. I use a Lutron control system. I have a big house. I have three keypads in the whole house that controls my entire house. And so I can tell it in the morning, if I want to, go to this, bright. Let’s say it’s Saturday morning, and I want to clean my house. I actually want the lights to come on bright. And in the evening, if I’m entertaining and people come over, I have an entertainment mode that will tune every light, indoors and outdoors, to whatever I preset. So you don’t have to have all this fancy automation. It doesn’t have to work all throughout the day. You can simply put in a couple keypads and control these lights. And as a wellness vibe, you can set the house up and have your lights exactly every room in the house. So if you have a dinner party, you can hit one keypad button, and every light in the house goes to where you want it. All your bathrooms, all the entertainment areas, and we use lighting a lot in homes now to separate public and private areas in the evening time when the lights come on. So a guest can come into your home, and just by looking at the areas that are shaded, that’s probably off-limits. I shouldn’t go down that hallway. But over here, this is lit up. That’s probably where those noises are coming from my drunken neighbors who have already gotten into the wine, and I’m going to go that way and go party with them. So lighting from task areas when you’re cooking I can put the lighting right onto my Boos Block chopping boards, but then the rest of my guests around my island can have a little bit softer light so they don’t feel that there’s glaring light. So intelligent lighting is by far the biggest impact in modern decor.

00:30:32,532 –> 00:30:58,592 [Jennifer-Lee]

Especially during, right now we’re getting so much natural light because obviously sun’s not setting till nine o’clock. But I hate winter. I’m not a winter person. I would love a home like that because that’s the problem in the winter. I have one [chuckles] light and it’s not great. It’s bad. It’s not fluorescent, but it just doesn’t make you feel good. And I just dread winter every year because of that.

00:30:58,592 –> 00:31:05,921 [Doug]

[clears throat] Right. And you don’t have to be a bazillionaire to do lighting. This is not… It is rocket science, but-

00:31:05,921 –> 00:31:07,292 [Jennifer-Lee]

You mean people like me can have it? [laughs]

00:31:07,292 –> 00:31:08,312 [Doug]

Anyone can have it.

00:31:08,312 –> 00:31:08,572 [Jennifer-Lee]

There we go.

00:31:08,572 –> 00:31:09,472 [Doug]

Here’s a simple thing.

00:31:10,932 –> 00:31:53,712 [Doug]

There are probably 100 apps that you can get in the app store that can control lighting. There are many protocols, Matter, Clear from General Electric. Everybody has their own thing, and all this is, is a wireless protocol. So in the light bulb, where you screw the light bulb, the silver part into the socket where you don’t want to put your finger at, inside of that is a wireless broadcaster, like a Bluetooth or Z-Wave or whatever it is. Goes to your phone app and you can say, “I’m going to set up the lights in my living room to come on at a certain press of this button to the blue end of the spectrum, so it’s like daylight to me.”

00:31:53,712 –> 00:31:54,192 [Jennifer-Lee]

You’re coming over.

00:31:54,192 –> 00:32:11,342 [Doug]

And then in the evening, hey, I’m going to turn that to incandescent. Anyone can do that. You can go to, I don’t know if you have Home Depots and Lowe’s here, but you can go buy the products or buy them on Amazon, and you can create your own colored lighting and dimmable lighting that’s pennies more than just replacing light bulbs. It is not rocket science to do it yourself on lighting.

 

00:32:20,472 –> 00:32:21,492 [Jennifer-Lee]

My mic can come over and- [laughs]

00:32:21,492 –> 00:32:28,552 [Mike]

Well, I had to do that at my house because, of course, we turned my living room into a theater, and I put a 120-inch screen over my 10-foot windows, which I’ll let you guys gauge the look on my wife’s face. Not so good. So she’s like, “It’s freaking dark in here.” So I put a bunch of tunable bulbs [clears throat] and they shift throughout the day, and it functionally extends the daylight from the windows that I still haven’t covered, and it feels like it’s daylight in there. And we talk about in life, smoke and mirrors, right? It’s a bad connotation. But really that’s all it is. It’s tricking our body into thinking something is there even though it’s not there. And that’s the value and the power of this technology, is it can fundamentally alter the feeling of a space by putting a few light bulbs in. That’s all it is.

00:33:03,741 –> 00:33:06,352 [Doug]

Right. You hear the term circadian rhythm.

00:33:06,352 –> 00:33:06,372 [Jennifer-Lee]

Mm-hmm.

00:33:06,372 –> 00:33:18,472 [Doug]

That’s a term I think everybody knows. So [clears throat] years ago, when lighting scientists we sat down with said, “Well, 80,000 years ago, we lived in caves and walk outside and build a fire, and it had that incandescent glow.” And I’d look at them and I’d go, “Okay.” And then we’d go into the cave and sleep, and in the morning we’d come out, and the sun comes up and it’s more to the blue end of the spectrum. And I go, “Okay. Well, that’s what’s happening today.” And I thought, wait a second, 80,000 years of evolution. I’m not sure if that’s what it is, but that’s basically circadian rhythm. This is what our brain fundamentally likes. This is comfortable and natural to us.

00:33:55,552 –> 00:33:57,282 [Mike]

So now that we’ve talked a little about this technology and some of the things you’re very passionate about, let’s talk about some actual examples. So this morning we were at a home called the Phoenix House, and we’ve featured the various cast and ensemble from the Phoenix House on-

00:34:10,132 –> 00:34:10,622 [Jennifer-Lee]

Their members. Yep

00:34:10,622 –> 00:34:27,392 [Mike]

… their members, their friends, and they’ve been on our podcast numerous times. Can you talk about some of these practical examples that you saw there, so people will understand the correlation between what you were talking about and what’s actually happening right now? Because this is attainable, achievable tech. This is not just for the 5% anymore. Anyone can build a house.

00:34:27,392 –> 00:34:28,192 [Doug]

This was a, I don’t want to call it a modest home because it wasn’t modest. It was stunning on the inside. It’s not a huge property, but it was a performance home. So they went through, it’s a passive home design. They had a gentleman from, was it Venito Windows?

00:34:46,752 –> 00:34:47,372 [Mike]

Veta.

00:34:47,372 –> 00:34:56,592 [Doug]

Veta Windows. These are advanced triple pane argon gas-filled windows, and he was there, and we talked about thermal breaks and all the technical mumbo jumbo.

00:34:57,802 –> 00:35:07,452 [Doug]

But everything that they had in the house, including all the science and the technology in this fascinating home, that’s the only thing I didn’t see because it wasn’t apparent. The windows, the glazing products were gorgeous. They were a light wood frame, which really was nice with the outdoor looking at the greenery outside. This wooden frame, I thought, “That’s a nice architectural and interior design.”

All the furnishings, there’s a big thing again about sustainability. They were all built to last. This was not furniture that you’re going to throw into a landfill in four years. This was quality. It wasn’t garish at all. It was quality, substantial, nice hardwood furniture. And then we did a behind the studs tour, and the owner of the house walked me around, and he would open up the equipment closet and say, “Well, here’s where all the magic’s at.” And I’m going, “Wow, look at all this cool stuff in here.”

But in the home, walking around, didn’t see anything. They had on one of the floors, I’m a big wallpaper nut. They had beautiful wallpaper, and the interior designer, Josephina, was there, and she goes, “No VOCs.”

00:36:11,772 –> 00:36:12,432 [Mike]

[laughs] I love her.

00:36:12,432 –> 00:36:18,200 [Doug]

And I said, “No VOCs in the paint, the sticky part?” And she goes, “No VOCs in the stickum

So everything that they had was beautiful. It had great volumetric space and large windows, and had a real natural vibe to it. But to be quite honest, they had a few keypads around to control the house, but I didn’t really see any technology. It had a Lutron lighting system, beautiful small lights. And let me put a thing in about design, because I have to do this, and this house amplifies this.

We have a term that we call wall acne or ceiling acne, and so most people in their homes have six-inch Coke cans. They’re the lights that go up in your ceiling. And some houses have 12, 18, and you look up at your ceiling and it’s like, “God, does that look ugly. What’s all that stuff on my ceiling?” These folks had four-inch rounds, mini flange downlights, and the whole ceiling was very clean, very quiet. And the walls, there weren’t banks of light switches. There was a keypad. And so the walls and the ceiling had a real clean aesthetic to it that went into the rest of the contemporary modern design. And so it was a very comfortable house, had stunning cabinetry,

stunning marble countertops. They weren’t marble, they were actually a silicon-free for their countertops. And everything in the home was really elegant.

00:37:52,060 –> 00:38:08,120 [Jennifer-Lee]

But again, you don’t need to go crazy. And I think that’s a lot of times people think like, “Oh, this type of home is really expensive.” And it’s like, no, because we’ve talked about the energy cost savings multiple times on this. But also you don’t have to go to the extreme. There’s ways to bring it down for-

00:38:08,120 –> 00:38:18,160 [Doug]

No, and you don’t have to do a home, especially I think the biggest market is remodel. Don’t have to do the whole home at the same time. Start with a space.

If you’re going to go down to the studs on a space, go down to the studs. You don’t have to go ahead and change your stud bays out. You can still pack in extra insulation, and you can get as close as you can to passive design. And you can forward think. The key thing is thinking, what’s going to be in the next room? So if I’m putting in lighting in this room and I’m putting in air filtration, what’s my next room look like? And you can do it logically and move room by room, and all of this is attainable.

00:38:50,720 –> 00:38:58,680 [Mike]

Obviously Phoenix House, anyone who’s familiar with our podcast is familiar with it. Do you have any other examples in the US, Europe, anywhere where a similar style methodology has been deployed, and what were the results? Because this is a very new house. There have probably been older versions of the same logic people have lived in for a few years. So let’s get into some of the benefits of people who might be living in one of these three years down the road. What are Ritz and JP going to expect in their house?

 

00:39:19,850 –> 00:39:20,100 [Doug]

Yeah. So when we started a report on these homes 10 years ago, and I would talk to contractors about heat pumps, and they would say, “What?” And I said, “Yeah, you dig down 200 feet, there’s a non-organic fluid that goes through.” And they said, “That’s never going to happen.” And right now in the United States, 62% of HVAC systems are heat pumps. So it is happening. The manufacturers are building all-electric products. That’s the bottom line, and we’re going to back up batteries in our major appliances so we can run low voltage homes. That’s a technical thing. So in the United States and across Europe and Japan, there are many passive homes. There are many of these homes that have been built. And the difference with the Phoenix House, and this is a British Columbia thing that, Mike, you actually talked to me a couple of years about, is you guys actually have to measure your embedded carbon.

Now, I don’t think that’s ever going to happen in the United States. I just don’t see the United States, any municipality saying, “You have to give us an embedded carbon report.” So you guys are way, way, way in advance, and this Phoenix House has gone way in advance of what a typical performance home would be in the United States. But they’re happening, and they’re all over, and it is the next big thing. And if you think about it, at least in the United States, this is the first major change in building homes since World War II.

00:40:54,370 –> 00:40:54,380 [Jennifer-Lee]

Mm.

00:40:54,380 –> 00:41:02,660 [Doug]

And the only thing holding us back right now are contractors saying, “Well, we’ve been building these homes like this for 50 years.”

00:41:02,660 –> 00:41:18,320 [Jennifer-Lee]

We get that here too. And one last question to wrap it up. A lot of people are obviously forward-thinking. You being editor-in-chief, and of course, you see so many amazing things, what do you think are some new trends that we’re going to start seeing across North America?

00:41:19,940 –> 00:41:40,830 [Doug]

So the fundamental big change that we’re going to see is in two simple things. One is energy transition. We only need high voltage in the homes for appliance with compressors like dryers, washers, refrigerators. We’re going to put batteries into those and store energy because you don’t use them that often.

00:41:40,830 –> 00:41:40,870 [Jennifer-Lee]

Mm.

00:41:40,870 –> 00:41:53,320 [Doug]

And number two, smart paint. So I alluded to smart paint that absorbs air pollution in your house. But here’s what’s happening, and it’s happening right now. Copper, which your electricity goes over, copper’s obsolete.

00:41:53,320 –> 00:41:53,560 [Jennifer-Lee]

Yeah.

00:41:53,560 –> 00:42:00,580 [Doug]

We shouldn’t be building and using copper in a home. So what’s electricity and low voltage going to go over? It’s going to go over your paint.

So paint today has what’s called nanobot technology embedded in it, and one of the leading universities is Ohio State University. They painted their entire campus outside, all the walkways, and now if you’re hearing impaired, you can walk down with your cane, and with a Bluetooth you will hear in your ear, your Bluetooth headphone, “Stairway 20 feet to the right.”

00:42:27,150 –> 00:42:27,220 [Jennifer-Lee]

Oh.

00:42:27,220 –> 00:42:30,200 [Doug]

And so it’s a wayfinder. And so Smart paint is going to revolutionize our homes.

 

00:42:33,460 –> 00:42:37,360 [Jennifer-Lee]

It’s actually smart. [chuckles] I thought it was going to mean something else.

00:42:37,360 –> 00:42:41,520 [Mike]

Well, I thought where you were going was it was going to say, “Go Buckeyes” every time you walk by, but-

00:42:41,520 –> 00:42:42,190 [Jennifer-Lee]

[laughs]

00:42:42,190 –> 00:42:43,860 [Mike]

… that’s the only place you’ll ever hear that.

We’re going to be doing something really cool in a few months at CEDIA.

00:42:49,480 –> 00:42:49,700 [Doug]

Mm-hmm.

00:42:49,700 –> 00:43:04,280 [Mike]

And this one means a ton to me, coming after 20 years in the consumer electronics industry. Those of our listeners who haven’t been privileged to spend 20 years living in our world, what is CEDIA, and why would someone from our industry want to attend?

00:43:04,280 –> 00:43:19,240 [Doug]

So, CEDIA is the trade organization for smart home professionals. This is where you will see the leading technologies in today’s homes that support these performance homes. So, it’s the first week of September in Denver, and we are hosting, and what we run each year is the Technology Designer Day of Discovery. We bring in architects, builders, designers, and give them a conference within a trade show. And this year, our special guest for our big luncheon is the Phoenix Alliance-

00:43:37,020 –> 00:43:37,030 [Jennifer-Lee]

Oh

00:43:37,030 –> 00:43:39,850 [Doug]

… which I’m calling you, is the design build team-

00:43:39,850 –> 00:43:40,850 [Jennifer-Lee]

The Phoenix. Sounds like superheroes [chuckles]

00:43:40,850 –> 00:43:48,779 [Doug]

… the design build team behind the Phoenix House are going to be on stage during our luncheon, and we’re going to talk about the great work that they’ve done and the amazing property they built.

00:43:48,780 –> 00:44:11,770 [Mike]

Yeah, and that’s very exciting on a personal level, but also on a professional level because we figured out a lot of stuff and we want to share it with the world. And I want to take just a couple of seconds to invite anyone who’s watching from Haven, my wonderful colleagues and fellow members, to consider joining us that day because what we’re going to do [clears throat] is take you behind the scenes in my industry, my old industry.

 

And we’re going to help bridge the gap between technology and design. That’s why it says, “Where technology meets design.” And I can tell you, both worlds can be frustrating to each other at different times. What you’re doing is helping to bring them together, and that leads to better results for everyone, but most importantly, homeowners and people who are getting homes built. So it’s going to be a very special conversation, and I want to make sure everyone from Haven knows, join us at Day of Discovery in September.

00:44:41,940 –> 00:44:57,959 [Jennifer-Lee]

Oh, I’m so proud of you, and I’ve been following you and the Phoenix House and your business for the last few years, so I’m really excited about it. And Doug, I’ve heard so much about you, so I’m glad finally I get to meet you because this man speaks very highly of you, and thank you so much for coming on our podcast.

00:44:57,960 –> 00:45:02,240 [Doug]

Thanks for having me, and please visit us at technologydesigner.com.

00:45:02,240 –> 00:45:03,160 [Jennifer-Lee]

I want to come.

00:45:03,160 –> 00:45:03,369 [Mike]

Oh, yeah.

00:45:03,369 –> 00:45:05,660 [Jennifer-Lee]

Oh, well, I want to visit there, but I want to come to see you too [chuckles]

00:45:05,660 –> 00:45:13,530 [Mike]

Absolutely. Check out Technology Designer, and in an ironic twist, even though you don’t barbecue, we are going to give away a barbecue to one of our listeners.

00:45:13,530 –> 00:45:14,220 [Doug]

Oh, great.

00:45:14,220 –> 00:45:39,560 [Mike]

So if you’re still with us, and I hope you are, thank you very much. We would like to give you a Napoleon P500 Prestige stainless steel barbecue worth about $1,700, courtesy of our amazing podcast partners at Fortis BC. All you have to do is follow us at Measure Twice, Cut Once. Tell your friends, tell your family. If you’re walking down the street and you see someone interesting, tell them too. By all means, follow along, haven.ca/measuretwicecutonce.

 

00:45:39,560 –> 00:45:40,300 [Jennifer-Lee]

Thank you.

00:45:40,300 –> 00:45:40,740 [Mike]

Thanks, Doug.