In the opening scenes of the Spike Jonez film Her, Theodore Twombely paces around an ultramodern city. Future Los Angeles has a refined aesthetic, full of eerily human computers. Characters connect with earpieces and several are depicted having fully-fledged relationships with Operating Systems. It’s a well-written screenplay and as one of the computers is voiced by Scarlett Johansson –it’s even kind of believable.

The film paints a vision of humanity and technology symbiotically creating a future together. The homes and apartments are all wired for seamless integration. Glass walls illuminate glittering city views. Technology is made to look as simple as breathing.

At home in Australia, minimalist and architecturally designed high-tech homes, already garner a lot of attention.

While some are bucking the trend and going decidedly low tech / mud-brick  – others who love to work and play in the city, are succumbing to the powerful role of technology in the home. They’re seeking out prestige properties with intensely cool, high tech systems built-in. Their connecting to their homes with software that helps the home to act as an extension of themselves. In Paddington recently, a Nobbs Radford design attracted 200 groups at inspection, and sold later for $2.8million.

Albion Street, Paddington by Nobbs Radford Architects had integrated technology and minimalist design.

This was one high-tech home punters couldn’t resist, with surround sound and great entertaining. “We have an insatiable appetite for technology,” remarks Nick Tobias, of architecture firm, Tobias Partners when talking about how technology impacts on the homes he designs. “If we can make things faster, smoother, slicker – we want it,” he says.

Finding the balance between slick design and robust technology has never been easier. Brands like Tesla, Phillips, Samsung, Apple, Vintec, Boffi and Bang & Olufsen working hard to make life “technically elegant:. Cordless appliances are now more sculptural – every piece of new hardware, decidedly more slim.

“Technology is becoming so much more mainstream. Every electrician these days comes to site with his own laptop. They’re not just the dirty guy with wires and wire cutters anymore, it’s a different trade. They all understand, computers, data circuits, digital circuits and home servers too. Every home we do these days is wired back to some sort of server room or central hub. And the wiring, where it all used to be copper wiring, is now predominantly Cat 5 or Cat 6 wiring,” he says.

Technology is now essential, not optional.

Cooper Park House in Woollahra designed by Tobias Partners Architects. The split levels of the home intersect around a central stairwell with glazing to the east and west, filtering natural light into the communal areas.

Since 2003, Tesla have been disrupting the automotive industry with their mission, “to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable transport” and now they’re bringing that mission into the home, by unleashing the Powerwall battery. This solar powered battery can power homes day and night purely with solar energy. This new vision of the home; green, off the grid and self sustaining, is just a hint of what’s to come.

The next phenomena that brings home devices online is the advent of The ‘Internet of Things’. People, machines and organisms being assigned an digital ID that means they can transfer data over a network without any human-to-human or any human-to-computer interaction. They do it themselves!

The Internet of Things (IoT) will allow devices to report to homeowners via a central information hub like a Twitter feed. This home hub could bring together devices like smoke alarms, security and surveillance, with updates about activity. It could let you know when your guests have arrived, or if the fridge  door is empty! Homes that communicate back to us are not only reported to be more energy efficient, but they help to ‘deepen our emotional relationship to the home’*.

Working with its steep site, this split-level family house by Tobias Partners is designed to capture panoramic northerly views into Cooper Park in Sydney’s east. It  discreetly frame views of a sandstone escarpment to the south.

Nick Tobias agrees: “20 years ago you had to buy a $7,000 controller and a $20,000 piece of software, now you get an app for free that comes with lighting control system and you buy an iPod Touch for a few hundred bucks and you’re off! You’re controlling the whole house –everything from lighting, heating, blinds, awnings, curtains, ventilation, gates, entry, access control, CCTV cameras – you name it. You do everything through that iPad or iPod,” he says.

Marisa Nardone points to clean line new technology supplies.

“Home automation through systems such as CBus and Crestron have become standard for large homes. It helps minimise switch plates on the walls and allows you to program different settings for times and events throughout the day. For example you can dim lights and close blinds for dinner, or put the heating on before you wake, and open blinds for breakfast.

“In the past, if we look back ten years ago say, there was a real trend to hide all the technology in the home. Technology needed to be combined with minimalist design solutions. Concealed control panels for home automation, concealed TV lifters, concealed ceiling speakers and hidden security cameras. Now with the advent of touch screen technology, combined with smaller hardware, we are seeing better looking systems that people actually want to be on display in their home,” Nardone says.

Automated louvre to void in concrete roof at Yves apartments Manning Road Double Bay. Designed by jaa studio, with Architect Marisa Nardone. Marisa Nardone currently runs her own practice in Darlinghurst, Marisa Nardone Architecture + Interiors. Images courtesy of Gollings Photography. Furniture by Dedece Australia.

Nardone recently designed the Yves Apartments in Double Bay, specifying many of the mod cons such as showers with LED lights (pictured below). Another great, but unconventional feature she’s previously used is electrified glass.

“Electrified glass can be an amazing design tool for bathrooms where the view is too spectacular to block out. The glass is translucent, so you have the privacy you need, but at the touch of a switch you can electrify the glass so its transparent,” Nardone says.

Shower heads with built in LED lights are a propriety product of Rogerseller. Shown here specified in the minimalist Yves apartments in Double Bay. Designed by jaa studio, with Architect Marisa Nardone. Images courtesy of Gollings Photography.

“I think screens have become more beautiful, smaller, thinner, crisper,” says Tobias.

“While we certainly don’t encourage clients to have screens on show everywhere. We still make sure the iPad that controls the house, sits on a dock in the pantry or suggest if you have some video art, that is goes onto a blank screen. But these days, in general, the technology is less clunky and easier to conceal because the hardware is so much smaller,” he says.

Minimalist storage and desking at Yves apartments, 23 Manning Road Double Bay. Designed by jaa studio, with Architect Marisa Nardone. Images courtesy of Gollings Photography.Image Caption:

Electrician Andrew Eckett from Advanced Concepts Electrical says the personalities and financial situations of clients dictates their demands. Opening gates and closing blinds is for losers.

“High-speed people, with a busy lifestyle don’t want to be concerned with that kind of thing,” Eckett says.

“You can put a chip in your E-tag, so your front gate opens and welcomes you home. Then your garage door will automatically open and the drive way lights will come on, as you approach,” he says. “All these homes have ‘Hello’ and ‘Goodbye’ switches and some even have a ‘Party mode’. Two or three most of the expensive homes I’ve worked on, have home entertainment zones like bars and pools with $30,000 of tech equipment, plus $100,000 worth of C-bus controllers,” Eckett says.

Nick Tobias agrees some clients have irrepressible desires. “We have a client at the moment and he is more concerned with his home cinema than he is with the rest of the house. I mean he would sacrifice the whole house, just for the home cinema. And as a proportion of the whole house I reckon he will end up spending 10% of the project value on the cinema.

“Of a 4 million dollar home, he will spend about $400,000 on the home cinema. I mean he just loves his movies, loves games, loves his Xbox and high-def sound. I reckon he’s going to spend on a $4 million dollar house, $400,000 on the home cinema,” Tobias with incredulity.

Danish design company Bang & Olufsen’s sculptural BeoVision 7-40 3D TV pictured here, sits on the floor as a freestanding unit. It is accompanied by cordless BeoLab 9 speakers eaither side of the TV on the floor and BeoSound 5 Encore on table.

Wiring up for leisure may be normal for this market, but the implications of augmented intelligence reach beyond sheer convenience. Machines like 3D printers are set to change the game, once they enter the home. e-NABLE and 3D Systems have already teamed up to change people’s lives at home, designing 3D printed robotic, prosthetic arms. These arms will eventually make it to our sides, making independent lives at home possible for longer.

Augmented intelligence also holds the key to health and well being. Beyond the relaxing affects of home cinemas and reclining massage chairs, computational machines will soon offer the world richer diagnostic tools and dietary advice based on daily health inputs we send from our homes. The road ahead is exciting. And with any luck, we’ll soon have husky voiced Scarlett Johansson-like Operating Systems, to talk to us, when we can’t sleep, in the middle of the night.

Special thanks to: Marisa Nardone who currently runs her own practice in Darlinghurst, Marisa Nardone Architecture + Interiors; Andrew Eckett from Advanced Concepts Electrical and Nick Tobias from Tobias Partners in Paddington.