Design thinking: why it matters for technology planning

In our books, design is the most important aspect of any technology plan. 

Not how impressive the technology is, or how many sensors we can convince you to buy - design. 

In any practical capacity, successful design doesn’t just mean that things look good. It means they function well too.

Don’t skip the first step

Design is the first phase of any Epitome Living project. This involves us figuring out how you live and how you want your home to serve you. The process is the same for commercial projects, with the question changing to how should the space serve your employees/guests/facilities manager?

Design thinking for building technology strives to understand the why behind the technology. 

It also prevents short-term thinking about your space. You might not want a whole-home audio system initially, but you might want one in a few years. If a technology plan has been designed well, then this potential addition will have been allowed for from the very first cable pull. 

The beauty of smart building technology is that it’s flexible and scalable. Homeowners’ needs change over time - children move out, bodies age, hobbies are picked up. A well designed technology infrastructure allows for these changes without a home or building needing a complete overhaul. 

The first step of our design process is learning what your dreams are for your spaces and figuring out how we can make them happen. This step can’t be skipped. If it is, you risk the technology that’s meant to make your life easier becoming clunky and disjointed.

The design phase of a professional technology installation is one of the most valuable steps in the entire project. You pay for design so you don’t have to pay with your time later. That’s when you become enslaved to apps and competing control systems. They work fine in theory, but they’re a headache in reality, no matter how tech savvy you are. 

If you’re working with an interior designer or lighting designer on a project, it’s beneficial to put us in touch with them. Sometimes they have plans that we can improve, and sometimes they have requirements we need to take into consideration in our documentation. We’ve blogged about our top tips for interior designers here. 

We aren’t lighting designers, but we can help you put together a lighting plan for your home if needed. 

Integration is key

Some aspects of design are simply for delight and enjoyment. These are features like stairs that light up with the pressure of a step, speakers in the shower, or home cinema installations. Other aspects are purely practical. That covers keyless access, security cameras, and EV charging. 

It’s our job to integrate these technologies so they form one cohesive, intelligent system. Unlike DIY systems that are built with an idea of what they should achieve but no throughline, the systems we design make different pieces of technology work together harmoniously.

Layering technology is a key requirement of designing integrated technology systems. That’s why we won’t oversell you sensors. We’re able to strategically place sensors in a space so they serve more than one purpose. They might turn the lights on when someone enters a room, but they also might trigger the burglar alarm if that room is entered when there’s supposed to be no one home. 

If accessibility needs change, that sensor can also be used to send an alert to a phone that presence hasn’t been detected in the room in a while and someone might have fallen.

This design thinking comes in handy for making life more convenient, too. Putting a home into holiday mode via one app adjusts the heating for an empty house, simulates presence with lighting and shading, and adds an extra layer of security to an already secure home. If you want to check in on your home when you’re away, you can do that via the app. This kind of system works well for people managing more than one property.

It’s your job to tell us what you want from your space. It’s our job to translate that into a strategic technology plan that works from the moment it's installed and well into the future. 

Design in practice

Our design meeting with a client informs the cable plan Jordan creates for the space. This is what’s given to your electrician at first fix so they can prepare the infrastructure for your smart technology. A well designed technology plan makes life easier for others working on your build too. We all want to be pulling in the same direction. 

We start with design, and in a way our projects also end with design. Cable management is an oft forgotten element of a well designed project, as is space for airflow and maintenance in a comms cupboard. It’s a failure of design that if your technology fails no one can get to the panel to fix it. Neat racks and tidy comms cupboards make for good design. We’re very good at being tidy. 

If you have plans ready to go, or an idea you want to make reality with an integrated technology system, speak to us at info@epitomeliving.com. We work all the way from design to installation, but we do offer design-only services if you’re early in a project or simply want an idea of what you could achieve in your space.