House of the Future

Disney thinks that the house of the future is based on automation and gadgetry. While I can sympathize since I'm a geek and would love automating the suburban house... that's not the future, it's just today's expensive.

Why is it expensive? Because today's floor plans and features are minor tweaks on designs that date back to the turn of the century. Thought for today's common requirements and technology hasn't been integrated. We really are very conservative when it comes to housing designs that are out of the ordinary.

Multiple dining rooms? Formal dining in today's world is done in high end restaurants or in special retail establishments that cater to larger parties. Having it done in your home is only available to the rich. And yet, in almost every house built today there are at least 2 places to sit and eat.

Hrm - why not understand how people really live, how their lifestyles revolve around family and roommate interaction, access to the internet, entertainment both digital and analog (reading, board & card games etc) and comfortable furniture.

Think about a cat box that's hidden away and ventilated to the outside, rather than crammed into the corner of the spare bathroom where it gets litter everywhere. A dog door that leads into a tiled utility area that has a large drain and a hose attached to the wall. A fully wired house that knows your preferences (yes automation) for lighting, music and moves with you through the house. A delivery box at your front door that allows the UPS dude to leave that expensive item you bought off the internet in a secure location.

A recent really intelligent look at our modern lifestyle was Dilberts Ultimate House. The writer of the Dilbert cartoon asked his readership to suggest design features for Dilbert's home. And what a home they came up with. It inspires and helps refine my vision for the interior of the Gia Ship.


If Dilbert built his own house, he'd start with a list of functional requirements that looked like this:
• Zero maintenance inside and out
• Energy usage approaching zero
• Green building materials when practical
• Healthy indoor air quality
• Practical to build, using local contractors
• Inexpensive luxury (emphasizing layout, colors, lighting, function, and design)
• Flexible use rooms
• No wasted "museum spaces" i.e. formal dining room, front room, foyer
• Fully documented, from the home theater to kitchen appliance for maintenance or upgrading
• Address modern lifestyle needs that are often overlooked:

• Exercise
• Play
• Crafts
• Home office or two
• Home theater
• Easy pet maintenance (dog or cat)
• Lots of storage for every function

Architecture

• 3,000 square feet above ground
• 3,000 square feet basement for exercise, storage and energy management purposes
• Three-car garage
• Spanish/Italian/English inspiration, but modern
• Stucco, brick, tile, rock, wood
• Not too boxy
• Rounded doorways
• No "museum rooms." Every room should be used and inviting.
• Outdoor areas (lanai, courtyard, screened porches)
• Interior colors warm and earth toned
• White exterior walls
• Ceiling beams (not old growth trees)
• Mirrors to make space seem larger
• Internal courtyard?
• Extensively wired for power, Internet, cable, etc.
• Few hallways.

Rooms Omitted

• Formal dining room
• Formal living room
• Big foyer

Interesting Rooms Included

• Home theater
• Basement with high ceiling, basketball hoop, golf practice area, ping pong, exercise area
• Craft room
• Storage area (within garage)
• Workshop
• Home office
• Quiet Room for noisy kids or music practice (might be incorporated in Home Theater space)
• Cat or Dog room
• Greenhouse
• Observatory

You really should check out the details - how it all fits together; it's really well done.

While we can't really conceive of everyone in the eco-city having 6000 square foot homes, we can use these ideas to forge an understanding of our modern lifestyle. Things like the 3 car garage, observatory and sport court can easily be public spaces where more than one resident has access and use.

In the list of "ideas not used" we pull quite a bit out of here and incorporate them as well in our design:

• Electricity generation on site - yes, but scaled up facility wide for efficiency.
• Super insulation - Of course
• LED lighting - Absolutely. The tiny power draw and their lifespans that are measured in human lifespans make LED lights very attractive.
• Automation - Sure thing. Since this place is designed to be the house of the future... automation has a big place there. Making it more comfortable and convenient for people to live here is a big part of making it attractive to the masses.

Disney wants to show what the home of the future looks like... I want to build it.