What Will Our Houses Look Like?

By Wes Jones; Bernard Tschumi

THE SUBURBS BY WES JONES

For better or worse, the suburbs are what America came up with when presented with the chance to manufacture its ideal geography. Come 2025, people will still live in houses within eyeball distance of their neighbors, but the cyberrevolution and the environmental movement promise to alter the landscape. While computers promote a dramatic trend toward decentralization, allowing people to spread out and live or work anywhere, the green consciousness will urge a contrasting densification, to conserve open space. The reconciliation of these opposing trends will define the suburb of the future. As the vastness of cyberspace increasingly satisfies the craving for more space, the house and yard will shrink to a more supportable size; when people can find their privacy in the virtual world, those wasteful "setbacks" between neighbors will become less important. Cyberspace will, at the same time, become the arena for conspicuous consumption, relieving the home and front lawn of that responsibility. Meanwhile, the physical neighborhood will be freed for parks and other community gestures.

The cyberrevolution will have an effect inside the home as well. It will challenge the cohesiveness of the family as children become self-sufficient citizens of the virtual world. The home will continuously readjust itself to the family's needs. As cyberspace becomes the kind of space that matters, the primitive territorial need for fixed rooms will fade, and the house will be divided among specific activities rather than simply among family members. So much for arguments among the kids over who gets the biggest bedroom.

Wes Jones is the head of Jones, Partners: Architecture, a technology-oriented design firm in Los Angeles

THE EXTERIOR

1. Powering Up Homes will tap energy from efficient neighborhood generators, thermal-mass cooling ponds and solar collectors embedded in the streets

2. Energy Source Machinery that runs the house will be powered in part by the homeowner's manual exercise. Pedal away, and watch the dishwasher and lawn mower go!

3. Safety Features Wheelchairs of the future will be able to climb stairs, and guard rails will be replaced with airbags to prevent falls

4. Rooms with a View While houses will have a Miesian simplicity, their windows will become display surfaces, able to show vistas of deserts, jungles or urban skylines

THE INTERIOR

1. Multipurpose Space Instead of individual rooms dedicated to specific activities such as dining or recreation, one large room will be converted as needed, with the help of movable activity pods

2. The Family Room As a counterpoint to the individual appliance zones, the open family room will be a nonvirtual agora for those who crave an old-fashioned encounter with a relative

3. Work, Work, Work Most of our work will be done not in the office but in virtual workstations at home. With a computer screen and interface goggles, you'll be able to work anywhere in the house

4. Burgers to Go Few people will cook. Instead their food will be delivered by the home-meal industry. The small kitchen will mainly be where food is opened, zapped and readied for the table 5. Waste Disposal Household refuse will be processed by a fully enclosed waste-management system, with unregenerated bits composted and spread on the overhead lawn during mowing

6. Bedtime Stories Bedrooms will be smaller, with a space-saving, foldout Murphy bed. Since cyberspace will be the arena for personal display, we will have fewer personal effects to store in the closet

7. Game Boys and More Instead of a garage crammed with speedboats, surfboards and assorted play gear, the home will have various fold-out recreational simulators and gaming pods

8. Look! Up in the Sky! Ceilings will be studded with videoconferencing devices; medical and security scanners; heating, ventilation and air-conditioning sensors; and environmental regulators

FROM ABOVE

The Family Car The ELOV--electric low-occupancy vehicle--will be the pollution-free mode of transportation. Its size will allow more cars on the highway, and its light weight will reduce accidents, since cars will simply bounce off one another. When extra space is needed, another car can be attached to its side

The Neighborhood The suburban house will combine with its neighbors in more space-efficient patterns, with private courtyards that leave vistas wide and open

THE CITY BY BERNARD TSCHUMI

My glass house in the sky satisfies the timeless desire for infinite space in the dense metropolis. It is a reaction against the dream of suburbia; rather than abandoning the city and re-creating an artificial urban experience outside it, the house addresses the city by existing both within and above it. With minimal adjustments to the roofs of existing buildings, these penthouses could be located almost anywhere, on high-rise or low-rise buildings. They would act as illuminated beacons, celebrating domesticity and everyday life by elevating them to the status of ephemeral monuments. The houses would also make great observation points for the spectacle of the city below.

The architecture of the house plays on an opposition between its industrial-looking rectangular envelope and the lush curvature inside, with velvet or silk curtains, rounded and polished composite surfaces and translucent glass. The services and circulation of the house are contained in an undulating sandwich wall that also helps define the living spaces. The wall expands and folds back on itself, enclosing spaces for privacy and opening to allow rooms to flow continuously into one another. It provides a subconscious for the house, adjusting to the specific desires of the users. Sliding partitions and curtains can also create room separations, allowing for more privacy.

Bathrooms are contained in a large "wet" wall that extends through the house. This wall's surface, made of a composite of glass and resin, changes between transparency and opacity. Running parallel to it is a "digital" wall that can be used as a projection screen, conveying blown-up views of the occupants' everyday life. Should the residents of the house prefer more conventional privacy, digital messages could be projected on this wall, ranging from advertising slogans to exhibitions of the owners' video-art collection. Tired of sitting in the living room? Don't get up; just change the picture on the wall.

Bernard Tschumi is dean of Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture and head of Bernard Tschumi Architects

FIRST FLOOR

"Wet" Wall Made from translucent glass and synthetic materials, the wall symbolizes the liquid aspects of the house and encloses the bathrooms and kitchen

"Digital" Wall Bordering the living room, it contains a projection system. On one side the family can watch TV, while outside, passersby can view a display of video art