Hey folks, I'm modeling some apartments which are going to be used in my film, taking place in or around the year 2070. If it turns out well, I'll put it up for sale. But what would you like in your apartment 80 years from now? Here's my list so far: The peep hole on the door is a small camera and microphone. You can see the person on a screen next to the door and hear them as well. Biometrics by the doorway verify the identity of people, as well as occupation. There are no keys, just biometrics, so you don't have to worry about someone losing a key and having to change the locks. The kitchen has a screen which displays recipes and whatnot. The fridge has a shopping list that can be downloaded. The house is computerized, and you can change the climate for each specific room, and it's all voice controlled The lights are voice controlled, as is the TV and entertainment center. There are no shades on the windows, they tint like those glasses but by voice command. What else? Are there any other things you'd want in a futeristic apartment?

well, the stuff in the refrigerator would be even more rancid..;)

on the other hand

shortages in oil and fresh water mean things are rationed

you have one form of entertainment (all different things like TV, Internet, computers, phones, etc., are one console)

The globalization of jobs has made your occupation either locational (something that has to be done at your location), or situational (anything else, which goes to the lowest bidder somewhere else)

things are more efficient..because they have to be
and so on..it could go in any different way..some of these things may come true, some may not. Just a thought..

Message edited on: 10/22/2005 13:27

The glass should be able to produce a 3D image so your view out of the window can be whatever you want it to be. Also you need a transporter device as cars no longer exist due to fossil fuels being used up!!!

Dekard's apartment from Blade Runner would do me...a wall mounted fan is what every apartment should have. Plus a balcony with a view

Hrm. 2070, eh? Well, first have to draw a line between what's possible, and what is gonna be in a typical room of the projects on the wrong side of Chicago. (I have a feeling those brownstones will still be there!) Fifty-five years is enough for major changes in the way we organize our lives and work; the last twenty saw the information revolution, with only the last ten bringing most of us to the Internet and digital cameras and cell phones. Fifty years ago from today Television was sweeping the western world (those parts that weren't still in post-war ruin), Rosie the Riviter had morphed back into Suzy Homemaker and was really starting to chafe at the role, the South was still largely segregated, much of the rural US was still getting their first phone. The living room was still the center of the nuclear (and nuke-fearing) family, with television taking the place of radio as the centerpiece but the shows and the style of watching them still largely the same. My feeling is that the greatest change in living space was the move towards individual housing; single people in apartments, couples that lived apart, the shift of entertainment devices from the centralized common room to bedrooms and from family doings to individual pursuits. So what happens in another fifty years? My feeling is the current isolation does not continue. Physical isolation probably increases, but the electronic connections to other people are going to become ever more pervasive. I see in less than twenty years a moving away from conceptualization of communications, snap photography, music, entertainment and information programming as device specific tasks; tasks in which one picks up a cell phone, a camera, an MP3 player, et al and operates it towards the desired result. I see within fifty years a merging of not just the devices but the tasks, to where you don't have "entertainment" and "education" and "advertising" but instead a steady stream of complex information. I also foresee an increasing virtualization and mock-humanization of many tasks, plus increasing reliance on automation. So the idea of, say, a shopping list is superceded by expert systems that understand your dietary needs and preferences and do the mundane tasks of ordering food and contracting delivery to you.

You have touched on, above, your mention of biometrics systems. Obviously the toilet will be taking urine samples, and unless we've done some lobbying on privacy concerns, sending the results directly to your HMO. One thought I've had (I'm a frustrated SF novelist, not a futurist), is that there will be more move to make the mundane entertaining. The virtual-reality form of rose-colored glasses, if you will. Adaptive soundtracks to our daily lives. Virtual pets, friends in constant hands-free (if often as not attention-free as well) contact. Drab surfaces enlivened by adaptive psycho-optical lighting effects (the price, only a few nearly-subliminal ads). There is so much that is going on with biochips, micro-power electronics, focused sound, reconstructive optics, and so forth that most of the technology we interact with daily is no longer going to need an obtrusive interface. No buttons, no flat panels, not even a need to wave in the air; pupil-tracking and pulse-rate sensors and the like will dim the lights and kick up the mood music for you. For, as I noted, those who can afford it and who are willing to go with it. There are people on this forum who will be alive in 2050, and I'm not so sure some may not turn out to be Luddites in regard to what I see as increasingly invasive, in a swarmy, "Are you being helped," Clippy sort of technological interface. The problem is, in any case, that extrapolation is by its nature straight-lined. Nobody saw the microcomputer revolution coming. Some writers got pretty close to email, microsoft encarta; the use of the home terminal as information portal. No-one saw google and the wild west of the modern net. Something is going to come in the next fifty years that becomes pervasive and obvious. Just as a person from 1950 would have trouble grasping what the laptop is connecting to (not some central server, but a community of other users), there will be something in that 2050 apartment we don't understand, and didn't expect. Perhaps the Avian Flu takes over to the point where respitory protection is mandatory outdoors and all air is filtered. Our apartment would have these strange accesories towards this task. Perhaps MUDing becomes the primary social outlet, and everything from decor to hardware reflects a life that is lived primarily online. Perhaps a new health craze sweeps the western world, and home food preparation goes the way of Absinthe -- along with all the accoutrements we take for granted in that department. Perhaps ionic clensing takes over and everything from showers to hankies to rugs vanishes, as all those ways we have developed to control and avoid dirt are swept away. Interesting project in any case. Please forgive my rambling. I can only hope I've given you some spark of inspiration somewhere in it.

Hmmm ... an attractive mud hut with hot and cold running mutants and a great view of the radioactive sludge pool? =)

80 years from now, eh? I have a feeling what my apartment will need will be life support...

Actually, that's an idea, come to think of it - a Personal Diagnostic Scanner, used to keep track of your health and vital statistics. What with medical services at an incresing premium (in both senses), anything that could be automated (like cholesterol checks, blood-pressure monitoring, weight tracking, etc.) should be. It could even be built into a bed, if that isn't too intrusive for folks to accept. Every apartment should have one.

Air filters should be in there too... even if in the future we manage to roll back air pollution, it'd be nice to filter out all those allergens.

A lot really demands on the kind of future we're talking about. Corporate-controlled, as most cyberpunk? Figure on apartments either very small or very large, the common-man type being plastic-like and modular, with cheap add-ons being the general rule. Idealistic, a la Star Trek? All the gizmos and gadgets here discussed, and a few nice houseplants. :) Etc.

Message edited on: 10/22/2005 22:38

I think every single item you've listed is either already available or has been demonstrated in prototype form. It's really hard to guess what changes will take place over 50+ years. Economics may dictate a return to multi-generational extended families under one roof. The basic infrastructure will emphasize conservation with sonic showers, composting toilets and even going back to hand washing dishes. Only the wealthy will be able to afford anything more than the most basic health care so herbs and home remedies will be big again. The poor will continue to live and die in squalor. The shrinking middle class will be kept pacified with increasingly lurid "reality" shows in 3DTV, interspersed with state broadcasts touting our glorious conquest of Outer Slobovia. With porn and birth control outlawed and food rationing, there will be no other entertainment. Oh yeah, we'll be on the verge of capturing Osama Bin Laden.

Everyone lives alone. You will only be allowed to have one of whatever you need to survive, and about 7 or 8 personal objects. Nothing has actual moving parts. Everything is flat screen. Everything. You have one window. The view is everyone else's one window. You can't see out anyway. 3D television only looks good, there are 11,372 channels. Correction: 11,373. Since there are no natural resources that are profitable, everything is plastic and nuclear powered. Your personal geiger counter says alot about who you are. Your inhome geiger counter can be whatever color you want as long as its ipod green. It wont match the apartment because the color of the apartment isn't invented until 2075. Your carpet is also your burial shroud. When you die, you're rolled up in it and disposed. It too, is bio-degradable.

This is for the rich. If you are poor, you are only allowed 6-7 personal objects.

I stayed away from politics because that never really changes. And, this was about living space anyway.

Oh, yeah, check my animation, let me know what you think.

haha,
Djinn.

eh..to be honest, I think you might have 'garbage mining'..going through old landfills for recycling purposes..and, as another thing, we'd be working with some alternative fuels and energy sources (if the price of oil goes high enough, eventually other things become economically feasible..coal gasification, solar, etc)
I think one thing that will be different is the ethnic makeup of the World..the 3rd world has been migrating north for 20 years, and after a century of that, our culture and outlook would have changed..life in the Estados Unidos might be completely different. The Middle Class may be a temporary phenomenon, or not..one thing, since I'm Osama's age (give or take a few months)..they might find him, but we'll both be a little bony (what, about 120 or so) by then..;) Just don't let all the speculating keep ya from modeling...;)

"Obviously the toilet will be taking urine samples, and unless we've done some lobbying on privacy concerns, sending the results directly to your HMO." that will not be happening. you've missed one important fact... by that time noone will be able to afford HMO's ;)

After Hurricane Theta hits in December of that year, your apt. will be underwater if you live east of the Mississippi. OBL is in a CIA suspended animation tank in the basement of Bethesda Naval Hospital already. Either that or a steady diet of goat testicles and cave living will enable him to reach an amazing age anyway.

Blade runner vid phone and fan. Corbin's apt in Fifth Element movie. Living room from Fahrenheit 451 movie with interactive TV/hologram. Clean living space/bedroom from The Island movie. Future house from Illustrated Man movie (kids and safari episode). Padme's apartment from Star wars Episode III. Douglas Quaid apt in Total Recall movie. Ripley's Apt on the space station in Aliens the movie (Alien II). Space is going to be at a premium in future so hide away beds, tables that slide out of walls. Watch The Fifth Element and see how compact an apt can be and be livable. So many ways to go that's half the fun. For Poser there are so many 'clean' enviorments there is more of a need for dirty halls, junkie apt's. my 2 cents.

Personal apartments are only for the rich and/or married. If your single you live in the communal appartments with 1000 of your closest inmates and sleep on stacked bunks.

Interesting discussion - useful, as well, since I've also been designing and modeling a futuristic apartment (although I'm pursuing more of a retro "the future of the '60s" look than it appears you're doing, by these posts).

By 2070, we may have nanotechnology to a point that the interior of our living spaces is freeform, creating whatever shape is needed for the moment, based upon our verbal instructions - there will only be one room, which can reconfigure itself to be a living room, dining room, kitchen, bedroom or even bathroom, and the nanotech takes care not only of the forming, but also the function, creating whatever technical units are needed by networking, so a toilet could be made from the same materials that later become a microwave or a vidscreen. The nanites will also disassemble waste products and convert them into building materials or even food. Surfaces will be touch-sensitive and capable of converting the occupant's movement into microvoltage, which is then utilized by the nanites. Closet space will be minimized, as well, because the nanites can tailor basic hydrocarbons into fabric or even pleather, and all that's needed is a biometric key to verify that the "style" has been legally obtained.

In other words, efficient, but likely very sterile. :D