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Stitching the Home of the Future

Posted by: Tim Halbur

23 February 2009 - 12:00pm

An architecture student's entry in a design contest sponsored by BMW proposes a new form of living space, utilizing new synthetic skins to build flexible living areas.

[In the contest,] "Students would be asked to design homes in suburbia using the same concepts and materials that BMW is experimenting with in its revolutionary 'cloth car,' which has an exterior made of flexible fabric instead of metal. The result: Coastal houses that can move up and down above flood tides, rooms that fold up when not in use, and roofs that change shape to take advantage of sunlight.

'We are looking at it experimentally, but the projects, at least some of them, are not that futuristic,' said Barkow. 'They are not that utopian.'"

"Nora Yoo, a third year master's student, took as her starting point the so-called shotgun shack - a small, narrow house found mainly in the Southern United States and named for the fact that a bullet aimed at the front door would travel out the back door.

Sections of the house Yoo designed could be tucked away on occasion to create a larger side yard or to save energy."

Full Story: The shapes of homes to come
Source: The Boston Globe, February 23, 2009
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Even if the report overestimates the costs by a factor of two and underestimates the tax-benefit by a similar amount, the conclusion would be pretty much the same: destination resorts cost local government and taxpayers money.
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