A group of leading scientists and computer industry gurus are meeting in four weeks at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to announce their plans to build the ultimate home of the future, a house that grows with you, talks and is your friend.

Organized by MIT, the summit intends to bring together a high level of architectural skills and advanced digital technologies to the mass market as part of a project dubbed House N, incorporating next and neural technologies.

The aim is to help people to create state-of-the-art, environmentally friendly, thinking homes tailored to their needs and their pockets. What it involves is revolutionary -- a house that monitors you with an electronic nervous system, understands you using sophisticated computer techniques and adapts itself to grow old with you.

Dr. Kent Larson and Professor Chris Luebkeman, the joint directors of the group, want the house to evolve with specifications pulled down from the internet so that individuals can design and order the components they want to see at home.

"We want to build a house that becomes your trusted friend," said Luebkeman, an assistant professor of architecture at MIT. "A place that knows when to talk to you, when to give you things and when to be quiet."

Proven architectural practices such as the use of south-facing windows to harness light and heat, and new ideas such as awnings that hold heat inside the house during the winter and create shade during the summer, will be combined with technology that talks.

The house will eventually have the ability to monitor your health and alert you to any problems using a computer software option linked to the outside world that researchers have called 'Guardian Angel'.

"If the person in the house was a diabetic they could wear a ring that would sense that their blood sugar is getting low, and that information, transmitted to the house, would result in the wall's changing color to alert the diabetic. The information could be transmitted via the Guardian Angel software agents to a primary care- giver and, if necessary, emergency assistance could be summoned," said Luebkeman.

"Kitchen surfaces will change and talk to you and the internal, heat-retaining walls of rooms can be moved around on your command. Sensors around the house will track your every move. For the elderly, in the event of a fall or accident, Guardian Angel will once again summon help."

Other innovations already under development are an intelligent work-top, a kitchen and general work-surface which can adapt itself to the task being done.

Radio frequencies beamed from the devices or products you are working with allow the work-top to understand what you are doing and change accordingly. If more grip is required for example, the surface will start to develop ridges.

Designed in its initial stages for the elderly, the housing system will cater for an aging population and seek technological solutions for them instead of consigning them to expensive nursing homes. House N would allow them to stay at home.

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Published: March 3, 1999

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