The Look Of Tomorrow
The Age
Wednesday February 18, 2004
Beam forward 30 years. Just what can we expect to see in apartments of the future?
The heat is on
The concrete so loved by inner-city developers will not be the preferred building material of the future, predicts architect Michael Jeffreson.
"It really is quite a mad way of building," says Jeffreson, of Southbank-based Demaine Partnership.
"It's very cost effective for the builder but, logically, really that (thermal mass) should be expressed on the inside and then if there's a skin or something to go anywhere, it should be on the outside."
Jeffreson believes that, while the next generation of buildings will continue to use concrete, they will have a layer of insulation on the outside of the building - "outsulation" - to help create a comfortable internal environment.
Several companies are developing pre-insulated concrete panels and insulation systems that can be placed over them.
Demaine has been working on developing new systems for fitting out buildings that would enable apartment elements such as kitchens, bathrooms or wiring to be simply clicked into a concrete shell.
Conscious of the increasing need for environmental sensitivity, we are likely to see more recycled materials used in an effort to reduce the energy required to construct apartment complexes.
Making the space suit
In the future, apartments are expected to use more sliding walls to maximise space. Jeffreson says the trend for micro-apartments in Europe - due to the rising costs of real estate - means space must be used to the greatest effect.
"The use of retractable walls and those sort of things means spaces can be used for a number of different modes," he says. "If you have a bedroom where a bed can be folded up into the wall and you can retract a wall, you can basically use the whole footprint of the apartment as the living area."
Designers are looking at the way additional rooms can be incorporated - if a family grows, for example, or if guests come to stay. This could mean placing a suite of rooms between two apartments and enabling access from either side at different times or placing a guest room for communal use on each floor of an apartment building.
The trend for working from home - whether it is just for an hour at night or a day here and there - means apartment designers are looking at ways of incorporating the features of a home office without necessarily taking up all the space it has traditionally required.
In the kitchen
They may be smaller, they may be mobile, they may be retractable, they may not be there at all. Possibly one of the greatest changes we will see in apartment design over the next few decades will surround what, until now, has been regarded as the heart of any Australian home - the kitchen. "For the younger generation who are eating out more, kitchen requirements may be fairly minimal," Jeffreson says. "At the other end of the spectrum are those people experimenting more with more elaborate food preparation, which means that will become more of a focus."
He believes kitchens are likely to become more modular, enabling them to be reconfigured or expanded as required with space used to maximise storage capacity.
Jeffreson expects built-in appliances such as coffee machines and food processors to become more common. And, while we may have scoffed at the idea of the internet refrigerator when it was first floated, the future of apartment kitchens is likely to be a networked one with automatic grocery ordering systems.
Splish, splash
Bathrooms are also expected to be more modular.
"The ultimate expression of this approach will be the fully prefabricated bathroom but, rather than the moulded plastic format of old, these will be sleek, highly designed environments with the latest shower, bath and spa systems and even mood lighting," Jeffreson says.
Michael Trudgeon, of design studio Crowd Productions, says they have been experimenting with making bathrooms - and kitchens - easily moveable so that an apartment can be reconfigured as needed.
Similar to the work they have been doing on a project called the Hyperhouse, the apartment's floorplan would be based around a central utilities spine to which the various elements that make up a bathroom or kitchen, such as a handbasin or an oven, could be "plugged in".
Gardens in the sky
Forget the eight-square-metre appendage required under ResCode. "It's a fairly useless kind of appendage and often on a very tall building it's also very windblown," says Jeffreson, who believes we will see a lot more of the wintergarden concept - already proposed on several apartment developments in Melbourne.
"It would be good to actually encompass that area within the living space with maybe two layers of walls so you can close the outer layer of walls to create a kind of sunroom in winter or a space that's actually part of the living area but in summer you could close the inner layer and it becomes a shaded area that functions more like a conventional balcony," he says.
"The other thing that is possible is to have sliding windows that operate at a balustrade level and slide away entirely and roll down insect screens and basically treat the whole of the apartment as more of an indoor/outdoor space."
Jeffreson says gardens may also be quite literally taken to "another level" with the use of trees and vegetation throughout a project, rather than simply at ground level.
At your fingertips
Fully automated homes have been the promise for years. Now the fall in the cost of systems controlling lighting, blinds, security, entertainment and temperature means they are rapidly becoming part of our life.
Jeffreson says one of the main problems with fitting automation systems has been the wiring: it is expensive to change or retrofit if it needs to be fitted into the walls. Cabling systems, which are easily accessible in central raceways or even built into furnishings for easy access, have come to the rescue here. Emerging technology includes cabling that allows users to "tee-off" a new line and even "heals itself" when the
T-junction is removed. Wireless is the other great trend although, for now, it seems unlikely to replace cabling. Nonetheless, more and more apartment dwellers will find themselves using wireless computer networks.
A wireless light switch has been developed, which uses radio frequency transmissions to communicate with the switchboard.
Always greener
Also expect to see greater deployment of environmentally sustainable technologies. Already in use in many suburban homes, these systems include separating and recycling grey water as well as rainwater gathering systems and using photovoltaic cells on the roof to capture solar energy.
Future innovations may also include waterless toilets and even power-generating wind turbines on the roof.
Good neighbours
Noise seeping through apartment walls or ceilings has been a point of angst for many apartment dwellers.
Proposals to introduce a star-rating system for noise may help, but so will greater use of sound dampeners such as rubber underlays beneath tiles, multi-layer walls to absorb sound and insulating blankets, known as "lagging", to muffle the sound of running water in pipework.
Rain or shine
Architects are looking at using plastic and timber to help reduce the transfer of warmth and cold between a building's interior and exterior as well as to help with reducing noise.
Expect to see greater use of double glazing, which also helps to reduce heat loss and exterior noise, and higher levels of automation incorporated in window systems.
Crowd Productions has been looking at electro-chromic glass to control the amount of light entering a room or the flow of heating or cooling. It is a technology that Michael Trudgeon says would allow exterior walls of apartment buildings to be treated "almost as a television set". "It's something you can change the properties of. You can dial up your privacy and you can dial up your sun control," he says.
Shelving the car
The future of apartment car parks is about making each parking space work much harder, maximising all the available room through technology widely used in parts of Asia. This includes stackers, automatic storage and retrieval "shelving" units.
"What we're seeing in Europe are systems where you leave your car in a kind of tray positioned at the entrance to the garage and you press a button and it's taken away and put away on a shelf," Jeffreson says.
"Where you have got very limited space available for car parking, it's very efficient."
Dr Graeme Gunn, of RMIT's Faculty of the Constructed Environment, even suggests that as Australians become more comfortable with inner-city apartment living, some may opt to do without a car space.
Beyond barriers
Expect to see apartments with more built-in features for elderly or infirm inhabitants.
"It would be good for the interiors of apartments to be adaptable to allow for people of limited mobility to live independently in that environment," Jeffreson says. "I think that's an area we've really got to think about in the future.
"We can't just continue to build buildings that not only provide limited access at ground level, but planning apartments that are too restrictive and can't be adapted as people grow older over time."
© 2004 The Age