Wanted: Homes of the Far Future

[far-trader]

There was a TLC (or somesuch) program a couple months back covering a new superhighrise apartment bloc (for Tokyo iirc, just in the design phase I think). It was a thing of beauty and exactly the way I always imagined a future arcology type structure, at least for an earth type environment. I'll do some googling and see if I can track down a site.

 

[far-trader]

Well this one is a pyramid so its not the one I saw, and this one is a little closer but still not it, hmm, more digging later...

btw, if you need to translate just cut and paste the url into your universal translator.

 

[far-trader]

OK, found it, SkyCity, my new home I wonder what the rents are?

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by PVernon:
I have an interesting question; If you were in a housing area of an Archology (say a middle class area) what would it look like to you?

Like a modern appartment block?
An open area that imitates an open area?
One story high?
More than one story?
Moving side walks, enclosed people mover, just a hall?

What do you see in your minds eye?

I recall a few stories that did a good job of describing it. I think Asimov, likely Niven, and maybe P.K. Dick but the specific stories escape me at the moment.

The whole gestalt was that the arcology was built as a pretty homogenus unit but over time it would get fragmented into areas of different character. Each 'neighbourhood' developing its own characteristic odor. Different areas falling into disrepair because the workmen are afraid to venture in. The well off living in the well maintained areas and the less desirables relagated to the sections that are falling apart, and in between the working stiffs serving as a buffer and taking abuse from both sides.

In one story the main character is followed through a rough day. Starting with getting up in the morning in his well off apartment. He speaks to his apartment as a person, telling it to make appointments, calls, screen calls, make breakfast, and so on. He 'reads' the news on the wall screens throughout the apartment. Eventually he leaves through his door out onto the common space of his section and level. He walks a few paces to the nearest tube and decends to the closest walkway. These are level moving sidewalks with a variable speed, a very slow walk at the outside increasing to a good speed in the middle of the half and then decreasing again to the middle where you can turn around and go the other way on the other half. These take you around your neighbourhood in good time and ease. Longer trips require taking a 'walk' to an on demand lrt station.

As he moved lower into the more dangerous sections, the walks became erratic and eventually largly non-functional, lrt stations were offline, and even the basics (air, light, heat) were in poor shape. To make up for the lack of transport there were rickshaw affairs for those who could afford it provided by those who were trying to make a few creds any way they could, sadly our fallen angel had no hard currency as he was used to his apartment charging anything he needed, only the middle and lower classes still resorted to barter, trade and cash.

You think borders are a menace now, wait till they get hover boards and moving sidewalks

Oh, and outside, forget it, not even the lowest arcology rat would dream of going outside (even if they knew where the door was), its just wild out there, I mean it rains when it wants to, not when the weather person says it will. Even the upper class that occassionally has to venture to a neighbouring arcology (when 'in person' tri-vid isn't enough) only does so with greatly felt inconvienience and a little dread, hoping the flyer will make it without crashing (never mind its never happened) and all the windows blacked out (why even have them, who wants to look at all that desolate wild space with no order).

Anyway, just a few drifting memories, probably from a few sources including my own mind.

 

[Ranger]

For a completely different take on the 'home of the future', here is a nice site with lots of prefabricaged buliding designs. I can imagine this type of building being very popular on developing worlds or areas of new construction.

http://www.whitleyman.com/floorplans/

Just swap the Car Sales office for a grav car dealierhip...

Rob

 

[PVernon]

Originally posted by Ranger:
For a completely different take on the 'home of the future', here is a nice site with lots of prefabricaged buliding designs. I can imagine this type of building being very popular on developing worlds or areas of new construction.

http://www.whitleyman.com/floorplans/

Just swap the Car Sales office for a grav car dealierhip...

Rob

Thanks for the link lots of good floor plans.

 

[PVernon]

Originally posted by far-trader:
OK, found it, SkyCity, my new home I wonder what the rents are?

Cool building! Just wish they had a little more detail in the presentation.

 

[trader jim]

Trader Jim wants just a new English Castle, maybe would settle for a Tudor style MANOR HOUSE...but with updated toilets!!!!

 

[mad13142000]

Although if you don't like arcologies, I have a freind with a REALLY cool pad...
If you have the money, just buy up one of those tiny asteroids. Then tow it up to a trojan point, and hollow it out. You can even use the tailings to help expand the rock or fix up the interior. My freind even has a docking port for a cutter. It spins around to provide gravity, though if you're really rolling in dough, you could install a grav plate. It has a big greeroom/hydroponics bay. It is small for a house it's size - It only has 3 bedroom suites.
Definitely a cool pad...

-MADDog

-------------------------------------------------
"To delight in war is a merit in the soldier, a dangerous quality in the captain, and a positive crime in the statesman."
-George Santayana

 

[Jame]

Actually, Maddog brings up an excellent point - non-mobile space houses.

Asteroid bases, used by the Navy, mercenaries, pirates and YOU! Any ideas on what would go into an asteroid base, to get the living space and docking port?

Arcologies in space - the ultimate expandable world! O'Neill habitats would theoretically have space for several hundred thousand inhabitants, though there'd need to be a whole lot of space left over for support systems, so you couldn't have an infinite number of people.

 

[trader jim]

Some where in "classic" Traveller, one of the LBB's, there is a ship called the ROCK SHIP...just expant it...you then have an Astroid Home...matter of fact you could easily get carried away with the idea!!, it still looks like FUN!!!

 

[Hecateus]

RE: Rock homes

I read one sci-fi book where would be residents hollowed out the inside of a rock, filled it with water, focused sunlight on it and it expanded like popcorn...albeit a bit more carefully...so as to form a nice large interior with a protective rock shell.

This isn't to far from what is being suggested IRL: Charges will be place in the 'centers' of a rock and detonated. The pieces will be 'captured' by fleets of robots equipped with focused radio transmitters; these will focus radio waves onto the pieces in order to maneuover rocks into place. Other robots wquipped with reflecters will focus sunlight on the placed pieces, melting and fusing them together to form any variety of structures...simplest being spheres and tubes. Humans within a reasonable distance and safe location remotely guide the bots.

on the subject I am sure any number of orbital derelicts can make a decent home if properly modified and maintained.

 

[kafka47]

What we are going to see in the Far Future will be a reproduction of the not distant past (1600s). It will be humaniti creating spaces that conform and rebel against the environment. The easiest way to picture this look at the UPP and any given world.

If the government type is authoritarian and industrial, chances are you are going to have a society of barracks. If however, the world is Agricultural and low population you are have spaced out residences that may be corporatist or democratic in nature. The frontier would initially be prefab houses gathered around the First Landing site, what would later become the Starport (which again the UPP gives you a guideline) as settlement proceeds outwards (as afterall, it is an entire world not just the starport) what are the features or terrain that must be overcome? If it is an ice world chances are humaniti is going to use ice structures much like the ice hotel in Sweden, add to that higher tech bonding agents (such as gravatics) temperatures could be quite temperate inside and very cold outside.

Desert worlds need not be nomandic civilizations, as think of Australia in which Rock Houses were all the norm in the 1970s.

Do you have a strong centrafugal force on the world (eg. industry and strong central government) or is your world having centripedal forces (eg. a garden world with an active hippie counter-culture with the emphasis on returning to the land)? Traveller will have thousands of variations. Travel yourself** and see how other people live and ask the question, what causes this settlement pattern and you will find the wealth of ideas for your Traveller campaign.

**This is the main distinction that I make for myself between the Traveller and the Tourist. I always want to be the Traveller not the Tourist. As for me there is nothing worse than staying in a hotel and just going back and forth to the beach, as many a tourist does. Try to explore in your travels and bring back ideas.

 

[Golan2072]

It all depends on the culture and on the owner's social class. IMTU, Solar Triumvirate (TL12) corp execs and ranking government officials live on the higher levels of vast arcologies; While their apartments rarely have real windows (for security reasons, mostly) but have crystal-clear display tapets covering every wall (and the cieling, in some cases), showing whatever scenery the owner likes to see when not in use, and capable of displaying communication and computer data and images whenever needed. The floors are covered by self-cleaning self-warming carpets, and the airhas the exact temperature, wind speed and odor the owner desires. All appliances are linked to a powerful central computer; the owner could instruct it by voice from anywhere inside the apartment, by comm from anywhere outside it, or even using a neural implant to make his "smart" home resport to his whims by the mere thought of it. The autocook is well stocked and capable of fabricating almost any kind of foodstuff or drink from its basic ingredients, and automatically summon new raw materials from the Arcology's yeast farms, hydroponic gardens and fisheries when needed. Restaurants where food is cooked by live Human chefs are available in the Arcology proper for occasions when the autocook's skills would be declasse' to use. And a short hop up the executive elevator and you're on the top level's Grav Garage, to take your personal Speeder to any needed destination.

If you are a lower corporate employee (that is part of the lower 95% of it's staff), you get a cubicle on the lower levels. Air has an artificial smell; neon lighting is monotonic; you could never escape the marginally-hearable hum of the life support systems. Your apartment, a 3m X 3m cube, has furniture folding into the walls to make room for other forniture, a cramped fresher attatched, a decent personal computer with a nice large screen and a cheap autocook which makes the yeast taste a bit more palatable than in its raw form. Vegetables are a luxury which you buy on special occasions - space is at a premium and hydroponics are mostly used to grow luxury foodstuffs for the Execs. You go down the elevator to your work in an office or factory in another part of the Arcology, and feed your consumer habits in the cheaper cyber-malls accessible from your terminal or in the Discount District of the Arcology.

Beyond the Arcology walls live the masses - about 70% of the population on most Triumvirate worlds. As a temporary worker in a corporate sweatshop and a squatter in the frequent intervals of unemployment, you live in a prefab unit, which is probably atleast 50 to 100 years older than you, or in a refurbished building from before the Stagnation, crumbling for more than three centuries of age, wind and acid rain. You still have access to a cheap terminal, to electricity and to running water (though the latter retain a metallic flavor from the fuel-cell they were produced in as a byproduct),though; food is another issue, usually cheap processed yeast with the occasional rat thrown in for variety. Entertainment comes in the form of cheap flat-vid channels (with corporate commercials andsubliminals to boot), of booze, and of drugs (chemical or electronic). Security is a real issue: the local gang war is probably going strong, and the combat drugs usually make the gangers more vicious than normally expectable; however, the real problem comes from the cops, the military patrols and the "reclamation" thugs - a ganger could be reasoned with, bribed or scared away, or simply shot with your cheap autopistol, but the cops might just kick in the door and turn you squat upside down in search of drugs, illegal leaflets or guns.

And on the frontier colonies? depends on the environment. An earthlike world would just have prefab colonies - groups of identical-looking plascrete cubes with basic amentities and quirky infrastructure; a hostile world will look more like a cramped space station, heavilly metallic and artificially lit (think Acheron in Aliens), and with several underground sections. Not too nice to look at, but it beats the life in the core-world sprawls, and police presence is far less annoying.

 

[kafka47]

As this topic got resurrected, I was reminded of the dialogue in Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars...which no doubt had an impact on early Solomani explorers:

"I can say only this!" Arkady said, staring at her bug-eyed. "Wehave come to Mars for good. We are going to make not only our homes and our food, but also our water and the very air we breathe--all on a planet that has none of these things. We can do thisbecause we have technology to manipulate matter right down to themolecular level. This is an extraordinary ability, think of it! And yetsome of us here can accept transforming the entire physical reality of this planet, without doing a single thing to change our selves, orthe way we live. To be twenty-first-century scientists on Mars, infact, but at the same time living within nineteenth-century socialsystems, based on seventeenth-century ideologies. It's absurd, it'scrazy, it's-- it's--" he seized his head in his hands, tugged at his hair,roared "It's unscientific! And so I say that among all the many thingswe transform on Mars, ourselves and our social reality should beamong them. We must terraform not only Mars, but ourselves."

Then they came into contact with the Vilani and the Imperium plus a more baroque influences of the Long Night would have had its impact. If TNE anything to judge the future by. The elite will certainly want their Castles in the Sky whilst the plebs sweat. But with the arrival of more worlds settled there generates the Utopian impulse followed by democratic aspirations toward Classicalism before an electic mixture. And all this ignores the influence of Alien races which as one can see in the GT AM 1 that have impacted the Zhodani.

 

[The Hinterworlds Rambler]

I use the Starship Rules to design buildings and space stations and the like, omitting the Jump and M Drives in most cases. I ask: wouldn't you want a house that has hardpoints?

 

[Chuck Anumia]

I would imageine that houses would be more convenient for those who could afford it and less so for those who could not.

Plasma screen or LCD walls if hot High Definition Digital walls in every room (including the fresher) with favorite pictures, scenery (mountains, desert, beach, forest, farm, city), movies or settings (ocean waves, forests at night or in the rain, etc)playing 24 hours a day.
Voice activated food and beverage production (with better quality for those who can afford that also).
Fold down playing surfaces for games against other people or computer games (those not displayed on the walls).
Ergonomically contured chairs, couches and beds that conform to the individual bodies for many hours of comfort while not moving.
Built in fax machines/printers to make hard copies of incomming messages.

High rise buildings (Or dwellings bored into the planet, grav cities or floating ocean traveling cities) with corporate offices in the upper floors where the executives can have a better view of everything there is to look at. Offices and furniture for executives made from exotic woods from off world trees.

Housing in the middle levels (the higher the level the higher the paygrade of the occupants).
Stores, banks,fitness centers, stadiums and entertainment centers in the lower floors.

Perhaps hydroponic greenhouses/parks in the middle of every floor for comfort/relaxation and o2/food production.

I like these ideas and may need to develope them futher in the future.

 

[Theo D Lite]

Sadly the future is likely to hold a higher degree of standardisation as unique design will become increasingly the province of the wealthy, talented or the unhinged .

Leaving aside the issue of worlds requiring special methods due to atmospheric or other climatic anomolies, lets take a quick look at housing development in the UK.

Over 90% of all house building in the UK is by developers, many of whom are multinational concerns that have one over riding aspiration - to make money.

For this reason they build for the lowest cost possible for their standard of accommodation and reuse as much as possible in terms of the design. They will, for example, have perhaps 10 or so standard house types which have been pared down to the bone. I have plans showing a 2 floor 2 bed house, designed to be terraced unitswhere the accommodation consists of 58sq m 7.6m by 3.6m (aprx). Another plan for a one bed flat occupies 49sq m measuring 5.6m by 9.6m although there is a garage underneath which is not included in this area. These are traditional build and include full bathrooms - no modular fold up furniture for mutli use of spaces.

They will put as many units as they can in a given space (the current drive for reuse of derelict urban space in the UK is leading to a massive increase in the number of flats being built but with little or no increase in the number of family houses).

Extrapolating this to the future and what can we expect? On any moderately populated world mass housing will be crammed in cheek by jowel, often without the full requiste support services (doctors surgeries, pre-school centres etc since the developer paid a Section 106 contribution for these but the Planning Authority hasn't implemented it yet as it waits for the pot to be topped up by other developers).

Modular low and mid rise structures. Many budget hotels are already on a system akin to this where a rc frame is constructed and the bedrooms essentially plug in. Shortage of trained craftsmen on site leads to a greater use of prefabricated factory construction as in this way there is a greater degree of control over the qulity, finish, shape and size.

There are companies which can offer modular kitchens and bathrooms and these often feature in new student accommodation (goto www.spacesavers.co.uk). Space will continue to be sacrificed for density of development, expect bathrooms to be reduced and consist of showers not baths, kitchens will reduce as multi purpose microwaves repalce full ovens and hobs. Storage will be at a premium, to reduce construction costs there will be no alcoves or odd shaped walls to convert to cupboards or nooks.

Housing will become very bland, efficient but sterile. Technology will be there but probably not at the point of first purchase, requiring the first or subsequent owners to retrofit. For example today a house will have one or more phone points depending on its size and target market. Usually, however this won't include broadband. A house may have one or more TV antenna points, but these are unlikey to allow distributed cable or satellite viewing and very few houses yet have standard Cat5 networking, and that can be a real bitch to retrofit if it's wired as I've found out.

With flats or dwellings with a communally owned spacewatch out for the management company's charges. As I understand it the management company in the UK cannot go broke, if the costs of maintaining the communal areas exceeds revenue it simply recovers the deficit from the residents even if this is over and above the regular management levies. There were cases of unscrupulous developers coverting a large house to a number of flats for as little as possible and at the height of the market they would sell these getting residents who under the terms of the lease (flats can only be owned leasehold) the management company would thencomplete works to the communal areas and the residents would in effect be paying for part of the cost of the conversion.

I seem to have rambled but I think that unless there are special conditions (and large sums of personal wealth can be considered a special factor!) then the bulk of people on moderatley populated worlds are going to find themselves living in standardised boxes with the absolute minimum space at the highest price the market would bare, working to repay the mortgage, insurances required by the lender, endowment premiums to protect the capital borrowed, and management company charges whilst trying to retrofit all of the gadgets a gizmos needed to make the place actually useful whilst keeping body and soul together.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

On many moderately populated worlds (if you count us as moderately populated), you are going to have lots of open space, nice houses with big lawns, and housing prices going up with wages, as well as some sprawls where everybody lives cheek-to-jowl.

At least, if you don't live in Europe.

 

[Theo D Lite]

Fritz,

I'm not totally convinced about this. Here in the UK house price inflation has been outstripping wages by almost an order of magnitude. Admittedly there's some signs of a slow down but it's a long way from redressing the ballance. It's only the low interest rates that have made it possible for property to be bought.

Many first time buyers are struggling, and the government is forced to introduce quotas of affordable and key worker homes within new developments granted Planning Consent so that essential people such as teachers, nurses, police officers and others whose incomes are limited and restricted to government set levels have a chance to buy property in areas such as the south east.

Here open space close to centres is often protected to prevent urban sprawl joining up areas of settlement to form "mega cities". Away from centres the lack of facilities, and notably transport, makes such areas unattractive to families with fixed work patterns.

It's a very difficult and emotive area and factors differ from region to region and from country to country. They no doubt would differ even more so from planet to planet.

I still think, however that unless development were controlled or government sponsered (such as occurred with the New Towns post war) a commercial developer is not going to offer anything out of altruism.

Sure on a fromtier world which is basically habitable, and even on some where the challenges are easily overcome (eg thin atmosphere) the spirit of the American West may be reborn where pioneers arrive and stake out their parcel of land bought via an agent and build their own place. How common this is by the third Imperium is a separate thread.

However on developed worlds you will have dense cities where most business is conducted, then suburbia, commuter country and finally countryside. The further out the less the density of development, and with the exception of the real centres of cities the higher the prices.

This is a reasonably present day model in the UK and I accept, and indeed hope, that advances in technology will make remote working truely viable so that personal location becomes less of a factor but this is digressing into more social issues and questions of sustainability.

Even if you are building for yourself everything has to comply with a budget. In the case of a commercial housebuilder this budget has to include an accepted level of profit and for this reason standardisation of design, minimising of cost and maximising unit density will occur. This will be achieved through:

1. Buy land at lowest cost for desirable site.
2. Buy smallest amount of land necessary for development.
3. Minimise Planning Contributions and Off Site Improvements.
4. Maximise Density commensurate with type of development.
5. Build units appropriate to location (ie flats in towns and cities, 2 and 3 bed semis in suburbia, 4 bed in comuter country and executive style places in the country)
6. Keep market supply below demand to create an atificial market price.
7. Standardise design, rationalise footprint to minimum for purpose.

The present trend here is for high density developments to tempt people back into the cities and therby improve the sustainability of the nation. I personally don't believe this will have any long term benefit, as the redevelopment and gentrification of the cities is being undertaken piecemeal and is not creating true communities or improving the communities into which these developments are inserted, again a separate thread.

Developers are not adventurous. They want to build a development in the shortest possible time, including the time taken to get Planning Consent. To achieve this they don't depart from the accepted norm. If everyone does this then assuming form follows function the only way to tell developments apart is to look at the colour of the bricks. I could show you areas around Bristol where it is possible to get totally lost due to the standard nature of the development even though a host of different developers have been involved. this is admittedly one of the worse legaciys of the dvelopment boom of the eighties which Planners are trying to redress at the moment, but in my exprience developers would still rather do it that way.

More interesting developments only come about when a visionary character is strong in a design team, the Planning Authority hold out for something special or the developer sees an advantage to deviating.

Now if your world is settled by a group who are visionary or wish to see certain types of development, great! Otherwiase I'm afraid that for the most of us wage slaves it would be a lfetime of ticky tacky boxes of varying size and location admittedly but all very much built down to a price and profit margin. Remember that everything in your house was bought, built and installed by the lowest bidder, unless you were lucky enough to have control over the whole build process.