A house of the future will definitely have a corner of that quality because that’s where people will be chained. The idea of a separate study isn’t important”.At Building Homes magazine, editor David Birkbeck says: “The quiet corner will need to be the nicest part of the house and I suspect it will be full of light. It’s the same in every workspace: people gravitate towards the windows. At MSN Street, computer users have slotted them into living rooms and bedrooms much as they do a telephone or television. But Wilding says: “We feel the nature of work has changed sufficiently to change houses”.All Gleesons’ houses are smart-wired with an ISDN socket in each room, and each has dual planning consent for office and residential use. Following the trend set in modern offices, the centres will provide flexible space and equipment that can be booked according to users’ needs.With communal space meeting demand for a formal office environment, the house can be left as a home. However, “the majority of people don’t like to be isolated in a family house.
(Earlier this month Islington council launched 11 access points to enable residents without PCs access to its services via the Net.)An idea common to several new developments is a “teleservices centre” – an IT forum that will provide technological back-up, social space and the kinds of hardware that people do not want at home. Design consultant Tony Rowe observes: “One of the problems is technology moves all the time New technology is always expensive. Organisations that employ a lot of people can afford it.”Individuals, more often than not, can’t. Clive Wilding, managing director of Gleesons homes division, says there will probably be communally managed areas at up-and-coming projects in Sheffield, Reading and Cowisdon, Surrey. Maintained by a company like Hertz, this would enable a dramatic reduction in private car ownership. Additionally, councils or housing associations will be able to communicate with residents about maintenance and repairs, and billing for gas or electricity can be done via a keyboard.
They will now come over and talk if I’m in the garden,” Pearson Philips, a resident, remarks.The Islington experiment is soon to be mirrored elsewhere. Millennium Village, to be built at Greenwich, will treat IT as a household service and an intrinsic part of the local community. Nick Thompson, director of the Integer (intelligent, green housing) research project, predicts that each home will be a “node” in a global web, but will also be part of a local area network.This will make it possible not only for people to work from home and set up local business, it could also revolutionise the way care for children and the aged works. Home shopping and delivery could enable far longer independence and by connecting to local clinics and the emergency services ICT will usher in telemedicine and improve household safety.Integral to the design of Millennium Village is a communal car pool. “Sometimes it’s taken me years to speak to people”, says Janet White, who has lived in the street for 10 years.