See related story: House of the Future Taps Nature for Novel Designs
Thinking Ahead!, rojkind arquitectos:
Thinking Ahead! is a high-tech home health-care system that can be integrated into any dwelling to monitor the physical well-being of the elderly and provide a responsive, health-enhancing environment. Centered around the bathroom, it includes a shower that performs ultrasound body scans, a toilet that analyzes bodily fluids and “floatariums.”
Networked video interfaces would allow occupants to keep in touch with loved ones. Therapeutic lighting systems embedded in the walls adjust to changes in stress levels as ascertained through retinal scans.
“Aging is something that we have to take into consideration right now,” says architect Michel Rojkind, who envisions a house as an environment where you can live and eventually die in your own home without being taken to a hospital or nursing home. “You don’t want to live forever, but you want to live the best way possible.”
Illustration: rojkind arquitectos 
Seoul Commune 2026, Mass Studies:
Seoul Commune 2026: Rethinking “Towers in the Park” is Mass Studies’ response to Le Corbusier’s classic residential plan, currently popular in South Korea. Their proposal not only transforms the towers into whimsically curvilinear forms, it literally integrates park and towers, clothing the latter in living geotextiles. The project proposes a solution to increasing urban density, rethinking personal space as a hive of small private living areas augmented by larger communal spaces.
Illustration: Mass Studies 
Dunehouse, su11 architecture + design:
The dunehouse provides an eco-friendly solution to the increasing demand for housing in extreme environments. Sited outside Las Vegas — one of the fastest-growing housing markets in the United States — the house consists of a configurable shell that can be adapted to variations in topography, and utilizes solar and fuel-cell technology to generate both power and water.
Illustration: su11 architecture + design 
Megahouse, Atelier Hitoshi Abe:
A response to Tokyo’s population decline, Megahouse turns the entire city into a “home.” Via the internet or mobile phone, users can rent vacant commercial or residential spaces for varying blocks of time, from a few hours to several months. Each space is outfitted with a biometric access system that identifies registered users and locks and unlocks the doors. Users can also request different configurations of furniture or appliances to suit particular needs or tastes.
Illustration: Atelier Hitoshi Abe 
Electroplex Heights, HookerKitchen:
Proposed as an alternative apartment complex for exurban adventurers, Electroplex Heights is designed to occupy the transitional spaces between London’s outlying industrial infrastructure of warehouses, garbage dumps and processing plants and the countryside.
Mounted on an elevated platform, it can be erected over existing low-rise buildings and is intended to give its inhabitants views of the changing relationship between nature and industry. The platforms can be dismantled and relocated every few years to follow the shifting boundaries of the city.
Illustration: HookerKitchen 
Primitive Hut for the 21st Century, Sean Godsell Architects:
Taking housing back to basics, the Primitive Hut for the 21st Century uses integrated solar and digital technology to provide a getaway from, well, technology. At 21.6 feet square, each freestanding room is equipped with self-sufficient heating, cooling and rainwater-storage systems and is envisioned as part of a wilderness resort complex in the Arizona desert.
Illustration: Sean Godsell Architects 
LivingKit, Escher GuneWardena Architecture:
The LivingKit isn’t a building, but it is concerned with the core needs of dwelling: water, sanitation, food storage and preparation, energy, communication and basic shelter. A database of low-tech solutions to everyday problems in the developing world, it empowers regular people to help themselves in establishing baseline living standards. The information and clear, concise illustrations are disseminated through multiple channels — community and aid groups, the internet, mobile phones — and in several languages.
Illustration: Escher GuneWardena Architecture 
Mix House, Joel Sanders, Ben Rubin and Karen van Lengen:
The creators of Mix House want us to pay as much attention to a dwelling’s aural landscape as we do to its views. “Sonic windows,” equipped with a microphone and video camera, record and broadcast sounds and sights from the exterior environment on screens and speakers throughout the house. Inhabitants use a central console to amplify or filter out specific sounds and to mix and customize audio and video, creating their own interior soundscapes.
Illustration: Sanders, Rubin, van Lengen 
Open the House!, realities:united:
Envisioning clothing that regulates body temperature in almost any climate, Open the House! frees architecture from the tyranny of enclosed, air-conditioned spaces to create more-open, economical structures that are integrated with their surroundings. Inhabitants wear a lightweight undergarment consisting of microscopic thermo-agents and a “textile motherboard” — these sense and adjust to changes in skin temperature and humidity. The garment enables them to spend more time communing with nature or socializing outdoors, even in inhospitable weather.
Illustration: realities:united
