The home of the future

The future of housing can already be measured

This is not forecasting but observation. The heating demand of a recent build is several times lower than that of the nineteen seventies, and that single change alters the design of equipment more than any innovation does.

Summer comfort, now the main criterion

A highly insulated home holds on to the heat it receives. The question put to designers is no longer only how to heat in winter, but how to avoid overheating in summer, and the two are dealt with by different means.

Equipment that disappears

Radiators, grilles, ducts and casings occupy surfaces that cost a lot per square metre. The underlying trend is to build functions into the surfaces rather than mount them on top, and the ceiling is the least used surface.

Reversibility

A home designed today will be altered several times. Equipment that can be removed without breaking anything, added to and moved is worth more than high performing equipment fixed in the masonry.

Control, now ordinary

Room by room and remote control is no longer a selling point, it is an expectation. What distinguishes systems today is no longer the presence of that function but how finely it acts.

What will not change

Building physics. A home will always lose its heat through its surfaces and always receive it by three modes of transfer. Solutions evolve because uses evolve, not because the laws are rewritten.

The evolution of systems is developed on the dedicated page, and summer comfort on the summer comfort page.

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