How WOW!house 2025 is showcasing a new era in smart luxury
This year’s edition of WOW!house at the Design Centre in Chelsea Harbour is an inspiring interiors destination on so many levels. One aspect of WOW!house 2025 that is especially noteworthy is the deployment of smart home technology in multiple rooms to enhance the sensory experience whilst integrating seamlessly with the interior aesthetic of these spaces.
This evolution is driven by interior designers working with members of CEDIA, the professional trade body presenting smart home technology professionals, collaborating with a common belief that technology and design can work hand in hand to create supremely elegant interiors with meaningful impact.
The first media room at WOW!house – a new kind of luxury
For designer Alex Dauley of Alex Dauley Design, curating the first-ever media room (shown above) at WOW!house was about crafting an environment where people can feel fully immersed.
“Interior design is all about a sensory experience, and obviously sound is such a huge part of that. The beautiful thing about this room is that the interior design intent has not been lost to accommodate technology and vice versa,” says Alex. “The end result is an amazing system, integrating audio-visual technologies and lighting in a beautiful aesthetic that doesn’t feel like it’s tech heavy. Everything has been hidden seamlessly within the space.”
To achieve this, Alex partnered with Nucleus, a CEDIA member and leading expert in smart home integration. Together, they created a cinematic experience in the media room complete with a Dolby Atmos sound system, discreetly concealed speaker arrays and finely tuned Lutron controlled lighting scenes. All of it is controlled via intuitive smart interfaces from Crestron.
Durgesh Sinh from Nucleus explains, “Our role isn’t to dominate the space with technology. It’s to make it invisible but deeply felt. We wanted to deliver this room as we would in someone’s home, and the response from attendees has been fantastic.”
Nucleus’s expertise in bringing mood-enhancing music, visual effects and lighting have also been used in other WOW!house spaces including the Phillip Jeffries Study, by Staffan Tollgård, the House of Rohl Primary Bathroom, by 1508 London and the McKinnon and Harris Garden Terrace, by Randle Siddeley.
Lighting the dining room – designing atmosphere
Meanwhile, in the Benjamin Moore Dining Room, by Peter Mikic, the design brief was straightforward: colour. However, the real wow-factor was delivered through expertly crafted lighting, orchestrated by LC-AV, another CEDIA member and longtime innovator in smart home technology. Their approach is about shaping the entire atmosphere to enhance how you feel within the space.
“It’s about looking at the overall experience and how you feel in a room, not just how it looks,” explains Abby from LC-AV. “People really notice the difference lighting makes as soon as they walk in. They feel that warm glow, a sense of being cocooned and embraced by the room.”
This intentional lighting design transforms the dining room into an immersive experience where mood, colour, and ambience come together. The subtle interplay between light and colour adds depth, making every moment in the space feel both intimate and inviting.
The library – where sound becomes space
While some rooms lean on visual drama, the Dedar Library, designed by Pirajean Lees and supported by CEDIA member, AWE Europe, and featuring Bowers & Wilkins speakers, focusses on embracing both the power of silence and the expression of sound. (image above)
Clémence Pirajean from Pirajean Lees, says “The narrative of this room extends from the expectation that the library is usually quiet. We wanted to play with sound and take a different perspective on the library and create something quite unconventional, and immediately we looked at the art of sound, which is music. We want visitors to really feel how sound can shape one’s experience of an interior.”
Pirajean Lees designed a room where acoustic treatment was central to the layout. Curved cabinetry softens reverb, high-gloss timber gently reflects sound and a custom rug inspired by soundwaves marks the acoustic centre of the space.
“When we design spaces, we’re also designing how sound behaves. We consider materials, structures and room shapes to absorb sound, reduce echo, and direct it purposefully. This creates a calm, cocooning environment with minimal reverb. It allows for loud music while still enabling clear conversation, resulting in a perfect ambience for homes or restaurants,” James Lees from Pirajean Lees describes.
Their collaboration with AWE and Bowers & Wilkins ensures every vinyl crackle and jazz riff played in the Library lands with clarity but doesn’t overwhelm.
“When we opened the box of records, I said, ‘Smell this,’” Clémence recalls. “It took me straight back to my grandfather, who was a jazz drummer. That’s the kind of memory we’re trying to awaken.”
A connected vision
What ties all these rooms together is a shared commitment to the power of collaboration between designers and technology integrators. With designers and integrators partnering from concept through to completion, the result is spaces where form and function feel indistinguishable.
The results elevate the rooms at WOW!house 2025 to be both inspirational visual treats and immersive sensory experiences.
