Are We Designing Our Homes For The Future Or The Past

For those who fear that, “in the not too distant future, we may be required to live in hideous alien constructions, the lack of historical precedent for radical change may be a comforting thought.

To know that our last refuge from the world, like a well worn-in pair of shoes, will continue to be predictable and familiar engenders a feeling of security.

Recent statistics reveal that nearly 50 per cent of the housing stock in England was built more than fifty years ago. The same figures also disclose that some 20 per cent was built in excess of a hundred years ago. This seems hardly credible when the incompatibility of the lifestyles of then and now are contrasted. How many homes, for example, were designed with the push-chair/baby carriage in mind and what percentage have a bathroom per bedroom?

Where are the houses that include a home office as part of their modern interior design and how many have gas and electrical meters that can be read from outside the building? Where is your garage located - sensibly next to your house or more remotely? Because we love our historic homes, we tend to mend and make do, extend and partition - but is this really the answer to modem living?

What do we really need for our homes to provide in modem life? First of all, we want variety - we want developers to recognize that, families apart, students, the handicapped, the elderly and divorced people also want homes of their own. We are cost- and time-conscious and need thermal-efficient houses that make few demands of us. We want to live in houses which have style and living room designs that are every bit as individual as we are. We need to be able to work, learn, rest and play in the vicinity so that we can avoid environmentally costly journeys. We also have a deep-seated need to rekindle the concept of community to give us a sense of belonging and to help reduce crime.

The crux of the modern interior design problem is that what we want comes at a price - a price that we may or may not be willing or able to pay. The individual home is more costly to create than its mass-produced cousin. Our desire to live in a green-field environment may be fulfilled at the expense of someone else’s landscape, and hasn’t that idea of building communities by providing employment, education/shopping and entertainment facilities on the doorstep been tried before?