“The visionary legacy of suggestive prototypes is long and fantastic. Each era, defining its own vision of “progress” proposes a relative advancement of the domestic prototype. Emerging out of technology, materiality and convenience, new formal identities suggest the potential interpretations of the present by describing the future.”— Gail Peter Borden, artist/professor
Digital Journal — Our society loves to crystal-ball the future of home design.
Case in point: the Monsanto House of the Future, first unveiled at Disneyland’s Magic Kingdom in 1957, stunning in its white, winged, all-plastic exterior. Twenty million starry-eyed visitors would go through this fantasy home. But 10 years later it would be demolished — never lived in and never replicated.
Futurist Richard Worzel, author of Who Owns Tomorrow?, is not surprised. “There will be subtle stylistic changes in terms of colour and trends, but in fact, most people want homes to look, well, homey — not like something out of The Jetsons.”
The question is not what the house of the future will look like, but what it will be like. And the answer may be resting in the palm of your hand.
Whether it’s a PDA or a cellphone, these rapidly changing devices are being transformed from mere communications devices into something entirely new and entirely universal — the Personal Remote Control.
It deserves the capitalization. The Personal Remote will be an all-purpose wireless handheld device, a sidekick as ubiquitous as the wristwatch. According to Worzel, it will gradually “do all the electronic and cyberspace things we want done, becoming a wearable computer that acts as our servant, agent, security guard, secretary, operator, talent agent…”
With all this functionality in mind, we can now tour our future home with the Personal Remote as a guide, starting with what used to be your home office but is now Mission Control, the nerve centre of your entire house.
Upon entering, your Personal Remote Control wirelessly and automatically swaps files with your PC’s hard drive, including emails, voicemail messages or word documents worth saving. From here, you can also monitor and control air conditioning and fuel consumption. Every function that defines your home life pulses through your Personal Remote like it’s a magic wand.
Aisha Umar, Microsoft’s director of unified communications for Canada and Latin America, says the wireless home is already here. “I use it right now,” he says. “It may become more sophisticated and more widely used in the future, but I think it exists. It’s the ability to work from your home but have much of the real-time collaboration you would have if you were face-to-face with a colleague.”
From Mission Control, you move to your living room and use your Personal Remote to switch on one of several HDTVs, DVD players, PVRs or game consoles. A giant wall-mounted panel hangs as an HDTV painting, letting you change the image at will. While watching TV, you turn on the electric kettle for some late-night herbal tea, also via remote control. To secure the home for the night, you press a button that locks the doors and windows, and activates a porch sensor. You climb into bed and press a button to close the blinds, then another to turn out the lights.
Say goodnight to the brilliant house of the future. Even though this home only lives in your dreams, it may one day materialize into a bricks-and-mortar reality.
A Quick Guide to Giving Your Home a Smart Makeover
Yesterday’s Future
When the MIT-designed Monsanto House of the Future first opened, crowds were awestruck; everybody wanted to live in one. But as popular as the design was at the time, it never translated into a realistic marketing venture. It turned out to be a mere blip in the history of North American architecture.
The house is now gone but not forgotten. An exhibition about the Monsanto House is set to open at the MIT Museum in the fall of 2007.
