Students imagine the family home of 2050

Deakin University architecture students took their imaginations on a journey to the year 2050 recently for a project that challenged them to design a home for the future.

The Future House project required the third year students to design a contemporary house that was adaptable to the needs of the 'typical' family of the 2050s and sustainable in terms of energy and materials.

The designs, submitted in the form of a short movie, included a house with transformable rooms, one built around a central spine and another with light-emitting wallpaper.

"Future House came about through the combination of my research interest in the engagement of architecture students in digital media and tools in the design studio and wanting to challenge students into thinking about sustainability and technology into the future," explained architecture lecturer Jeremy Ham.

"The design brief required the students to give a lot of thought to the future: what will the 'typical' family be in 2050, the environmental challenges we will be facing, the type of materials we will have available and so on."

The submitted movies were posted online, giving the students a public audience for their work and challenging them to be imaginative in their presentations.

"In the past, a folio was a critical tool for any architect— a big folio full of sheets of A1 paper that you took around to demonstrate your work to clients and employers. Now an architect is just as likely to refer you to their website to see their work, so it is very important for our students to explore how they can present their work by using new technologies.

"The quality of the submissions has been excellent overall and the diversity of designs gives an insight into the different views our students have on what the future holds."

To take a trip into the future and see a selection of what the Deakin architecture students think the homes of 2050 will be like visit http://www.ab.deakin.edu.au/online/futurehouse.