Saturday, January 07, 2012
Electronic and environmental changes are set to transform ours homes in the future, Kya deLongchamps reports
CAN you imagine how anyone in 1962 would have reacted if you told them that in 2012 we would happily fish out the biodegradable and recyclable waste from our rubbish and stuff our walls with sheep’s wool? It would have seemed the hippy ravings brought on by inhaling too much flower power. Still, in 50 years time, (the year in which the cartoon Jetsons are actually set), our homes are likely to be all but unrecognisable. Here’s just a teasing glimpse of that new world to come.
ULTIMATE RECYCLING
Those of a more sensitive emotional nature might want to put down their cereal spoons, right about — now. In 2062, good drinking water is likely to be a relatively expensive resource. You’ll think nothing of strolling off to the bathroom to stand over your own filtering/squatting toilet with a handy grip handle to take a good aim. The waste is a valuable household commodity and will be conducted with just 1 litre of flushing water to a methane producing ‘digester’. Added to other degradable rubbish and effluent, your contribution will help power lights and appliances, and cool water to chill the must-have alterative fridge — a Bio- larder, chock full of fresh and potted vegetables and fruit.
That very loo, derived from Sulabh Foundation in India, has been taken from the drawing board by Philips Design, and included in their fascinating Microbal Home Probe Project. The Probe is a curiously stark but lovely interior with a symbiotic life of its own.
If you need an exciting incentive for performing demi-pliats in the bathroom, Philip’s scientists point out that squatting is physically better for the hind end of a human being, with far less colon cancers in countries where a standing posture is the norm. We have already started filtering, processing and recycling waste at home in our composters and brown bins — why not?
DECORATING WITH BEES AND BACTERIA
Among the prettier ingredients in the Probe home is the Urban Beehive, a mesmerising golden glass enclosure with an entry way pierced through an outside wall. Bees produce honey right in our kitchens where it’s siphoned off by tap from a stacked sculpture of glistening combs. Ambient lighting in the Probe room is produced by bioluminescent bacteria or proteins, feasting on methane and composted waste drawn down from the home digester, and enclosed in a curtain of organically styled glass bubbles. The Philips Probe project shows just how far we may boldly go in years to come, with a pared back interior landscape of working pieces that are not only mesmeric to look at but perform a daily devotion to our well being.
If you can stand to look our potential future square in the eye examine the entire workings of this revolutionary thinking at Philip’s design website www.design.philips.com.
THE CONNECTED HOME
The information age that we’ve enjoyed in our home PCs, the Internet and through the wonders of the super mobile telephone, will drive other changes. Tomorrow’s house will only be passive in the sense of requiring very little heating. Far from a pile of bricks just enclosing furniture, your house will be completely, electronically ‘connected’ awakening as a domestic network — a sort of huge personal computer controlled by you.
This network will be an exaggeration of the wireless technology currently allowing our phones, television and PCs to chat and exchange entertainment content. Have you already emailed or texted a picture straight to a digital photo-frame overseas? The steady hum of home automation can extend easily to turning appliances on or off, tuning the heating, dimming lights by night, and checking our security from where ever we are. What’s already available in the multi-million euro houses will trickle down to us mere mortals over time as the technology becomes affordable.
By 2062, your house is quite likely to be a bit opinionated, honing your behaviour around the house to answer new standards in sustainable living. Independent thought from smart circuitiery has to be paid for, but given the perfection of photovoltaic systems you can sell some home grown power back to Electricity Ireland to pay for it all.
Norwegian company EnSol AS has already created a unique patented transparent film which can be coated onto window glass so that windows in buildings act as power generators. It’s likely to be available as early as 2016.
WIRELESS HOUSEKEEPING FROM THE CES
The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is held in Las Vegas, Nevada in January every year. It’s geek-central and a must-see not only for electronic buffs but increasingly important for anyone keen to explore cutting edge home automation. The Americans are as fascinated by convenience as ecological concerns and the first thing that interests many people is losing wiring that entangles much of our homes.
Fulton Innovations, from Michigan, caused real excitement with their eCoupled Wireless technology at the CES 2011. Ordinary surfaces around the house, from kitchen counters to living room tables, become instant power sources that can heat food through cool-to-touch induction coils, or charge or run any appliance laid down on them. With ‘Smart’ cabinets using eCoupled packaging, food is scanned as it goes into storage, recording its potential for family menus, its level of fullness and its ‘use-by’ date. Expect to be ticked off by text if an open packet of sultanas is about to turn to pebbles. www.ecoupled.com. Some intelligent appliances such as LG fridges have already started this sort of electronic housekeeping with polite suggestions of menu plans from the ingredients you tell it is inside its cavity. www.lg.co.uk.
CONTROL OR CONTROLLED?
Remember the talking BMWs, who got their fan belts in a twist if you held the door open too long or didn’t instantly seize the seatbelt? That hectoring Fräulein was quietly withdrawn. I’m locked in combat with my Whirlpool ‘hydro-sensor’ dryer, a mere blip of fuzzy logic by the standards of 2062. It punishes me with damp undergarments if I try a quick toss and don’t fill her to regulatory watt respectful loads of 5kg. Will a computerised dictate of the Irish Government some day trill up through my lint-collector — "Citizen! Your knickers are dried according to EPA standards, remove them immediately".
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