What NZ's homes of the future will look like

If you’ve got this idea in your mind that homes of the future will look like something out of a sci-fi novel, you might want to think again.

“People think the homes of the future are going to be suburban homes on steroids, but I don’t think that is the case,” says Bill McKay, senior lecturer at the University of Auckland’s School of Architecture and Planning.

“I don’t think they will look too different, but what will be different is that in the future a lot of people won’t be living in houses, they’ll be living in apartments or duplexes or other medium or high density housing. These are the homes of the future.”

In years to come, we’ll be living in residences that are more specifically tailored to our stage of life, from tiny hostel rooms for students through to low-maintenance apartments for empty nesters. Rather than the “one size fits all” mentality we’ve previously had, with people living in single family homes when they don’t really need all that room, there will be a focus on bespoke accommodation, says Bill.

While many homes will be smaller due to a lack of space, particularly in Auckland where we’re sandwiched between harbours, and also to keep costs down, some homes will be extended or purposely built to house several generations.

“With housing becoming less affordable, a lot of empty nesters find their kids moving back in because they want to live with Mum and Dad rent-free while they save for their own home.

The future is now: One Central Park high-rise apartment building in Sydney, Australia, is noted for its hanging vertical gardens and a cantilevered platform with heliostats, jutting out from the 28th floor. Photo / Getty Images

“Or you might have older family members moving in because they need looking after. I think we are going to see a lot more of these multi-generational homes.”

We are also likely to see more dwellings without the fixture that’s prominent in most Kiwi homes today – the garage. More of us will be ditching our expensive-to-run vehicles for public transport, services like Uber and shared autonomous cars. As a result, there will be less need for garages and driveways, which take up a lot of space on valuable land.

It’s also highly likely that we are going to eventually follow European trends and move towards co-operative housing.

“This is where you get 10 or 15 couples, and some singletons as well, who band together to buy a property,” says Bill. “You then build housing that suits all of you, each with your own space. And if there is any dead space, perhaps a part of the building that doesn’t get much sun, it can be used for storage or as someplace you can rent out to someone who has a business. It is using space a lot more wisely.

“Plus rather than having your own backyard that you don’t use very much, you can merge outdoor areas and have a kind of village green.”

Not only is this a better use of outdoor space but it encourages people living in medium and high density developments to be more sociable. Another way of doing this is to include communal lounges in apartment blocks.

“Auckland developers Ockham has done this with its apartments in Grey Lynn, where instead of having a penthouse on the top floor that they could have charged a lot of money for, they have a room and outdoor area on the roof that everyone can use, where you can go and talk to your neighbours,” says Bill. “I think we are going to see a lot more of this.”

Designing developments that promote this kind of interaction is important, says Bill, because we tend to be more socially isolated than we have been in the past, and that’s likely to get worse in the future.

“In this world of social media, we may be connected digitally, but a lot of people are actually lonely because they don’t have much physical contact with others. Loneliness and isolation can have a big impact.”

Also contributing to that lack of face-to-face contact is the fact that a lot of us now work from home, and those numbers are set to increase in the future. Homes in the years to come are likely to include offices, or at least a dedicated space where you can set up your lap top or computer and get down to work, as a standard feature.

And homes of the future will, of course, be much more advanced technologically, not only making it much easier for us to work at home, but to run our households. Home automation apps are already available that allow us to control lighting, power, heating, entertainment and security remotely from a device.

Voice recognition control is tipped to be one of the next big things – we won’t even need to tap our phones or devices, we can just tell our homes what to do.

“Technology has changed everything, which is good in many ways but there is also the risk of your house getting hacked,” says Bill. “And we do have to wonder about the safety of all this technology – all these radio frequencies we are bathing in might have an effect on our health. So you could see homes that will have technology-free areas, with no Wi-Fi, so you can get away from that.”

While there are plenty of predictions about what the homes of the future may be able to do technology-wise, the most extreme innovations are probably still beyond our imaginations, says Bill.

“When the internet first came along we had no idea just how much it would transform everything. I think what happens in the future as far as our homes and technology goes could be something we have no concept of at the moment. There’s going to be lot more to come we haven’t even dreamed of.”

INDEPENDENT CERTIFICATION NEEDED

One thing that can be guaranteed about homes of the future is that they will be more environmentally friendly and energy efficient. They have to be – not only because this country is trying to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, but because we desperately need to do something about our cold, damp and mouldy homes, says Andrew Eagles, chief executive of the New Zealand Green Building Council.

“We cannot meet our zero carbon targets without dramatically improving the energy efficiency of all of our 1.8 million homes,” he says. “The most fundamental difference we will see with homes in years to come is that there will have to be independent verification of the quality of the house. At the moment, if you buy a house you rely on the builder or owners to tell you if it is warm and dry.

‘But other countries have something called an energy performance certificate so you know how energy efficient the home is. We need to do that too – we have one of the worst building codes in the OECD so our homes are cold, they have poor ventilation, they are damp and often mouldy.”

New laws to improve energy efficiency will result in better insulation and ventilation. And while more homes of the future are likely to start producing their own energy – be it via solar panels, ground source heating or wind turbines – there is no point in investing in those expensive measures until we take steps to stop heat escaping from our homes, says Andrew.