integrated into their lives they want
the technology to begin integrated into
their homes but as an architect I know
we have a problem in the near future and
that is the way we build right now
cannot accommodate the integration of
this technology the house of the future
is gonna have a lot of batteries I know
this so back to the Millennials they’re
gonna expect smart homes but we know
there’s going to be a problem because
the way houses are built
it’s a horribly inefficient process it
involves a much waste it involves a lot
of coordination and if you look at this
slide you’ll see that a typical home is
really usually it’s built from the
outside in in that the house is framed
it’s sheathed and then the teams and
teams of trades people come in and they
install the plumbing and the mechanical
and electrical and it’s not so efficient
generates a lot of waste but by contrast
let’s look and see how a car is
manufactured because really when you
look at a car that’s coming off the
assembly line that car is a snapshot of
the technology of the day is it not the
Tesla you know the latest hot car the
all battery battery powered electric car
I mean it’s it’s got everything from
high-performance to a comfortable
interior environment airplanes
they’ve been autonomous for many years
now ships they’ve been built in a brief
with prefabricated processes also for
years if you look at the interior of all
of these these these buildings right
there’s integrated technology everywhere
technology that makes it
it makes the the car the ship
user-friendly
there’s gesture control there’s voice
control it’s got it’s got a lot of the
new technologies and that all comes
about because we’re building these
things in a high-performance environment
not on a construction site like a house
so what if components of our houses are
built like appliances what if a kitchen
or a bathroom can be fully built in a
factory like a refrigerator at Virginia
Tech we have a research project called
future house where we’re proposing that
in order to accommodate smart
technologies we have to rethink how we
build so we’ve come up with a suite of
cartridges or house components such as
bedrooms that can convert to home
offices laundry rooms mechanical rooms
the whole suite is prefabricated
packaged up and delivered to the site
and then the house is built around it so
the you know how do we do this we start
with a structural frame a sips panel of
structural insulated wall panel this
panel is cut with CNC processes so it’s
absolutely perfect it’s precise at
square and it’s the perfect environment
for installing all these cabinets that
require perfection and precision the
result is this it’s a smart kitchen that
is ready to be packaged up and delivered
to the site this would be I like to say
that you know one day maybe we’ll go to
Best Buy instead of just buying the the
appliance will actually buy the whole
kitchen so we love this idea and we
really thought it would work but we
wanted to try it out so on a little side
project myself and two of my students
that were on this team recently
graduated to have a little bit of money
we decided to go in and get a
construction loan and build a house this
house is
a two-level structure we built it with
our own hands and it takes 12 cartridge
components that are stacked on a site
this is one example as the kitchen we
rented a warehouse for 30 days and in
that warehouse we installed all of the
systems from the electrical to the
plumbing to the tile work even the
lighting in the cabinets in one day we
rented a crane and we stacked those 12
objects right onto the jobsite almost
like a Lego set we’re gonna get Lego to
even the roof was a set of prefabricated
components so we took full advantage of
having that crane in eight hours we were
pretty much closed in in three days we
were completely weatherproof we spent
about a month a couple months after that
finishing everything up things that
weren’t done off-site and this is the
resulting house and it even though it
looks like a normal house it’s far from
a normal house it’s actually a beautiful
house and it just recently we just found
just went to Richmond and we won a
national air a design award for it so
we’re pretty happy with that experiment
but here’s the spark if we can do that
was just a regular house which by the
way we sold a month ahead of time and we
sold within the budget what can we do if
we use this process to make the smart
home so years ago Corning Glass came out
with this video call a day made of glass
and it was really a visionary video that
looked to the future and proposed what
the future future house would be at the
time we were working on the lumen house
and then we were working on the smart
home they were in envisioning what it
would be but now there are partners we
reached out to them and together we’re
working on all of these smart components
that uses of the Gorilla Glass as the
interior this is our first prototype it
was the kitchen and it’s the
Internet of Things kitchen it has
integrated screens for interfaces for
skyping I love the kitchen the
backsplash is a touchscreen display
where you can you can Skype in grandma
and have for show you how to make that
apple pie the house is full of
easy-to-use interfaces with voice
control and gesture control doors are
actuated there’s cameras in the oven you
know watching your cookies bake because
it was a student that gave me idea you
know we can’t have burned cookies or not
even burn they just have to cook
perfectly we have sensors in the
refrigerator this is before Samsung came
out with airs which I don’t think it
works but we have sensors we have
sensors in our fridge right so you can
you can log into your refrigerator and
your pantry from the grocery store and
see check on how you’re doing with milk
and how old that milk is we even are
taking the opportunity since we have a
whole kitchen to integrate technology
like in the kitchen within systems so we
have a countertop that integrates the
induction cooktop under it so when
you’re not cooking you have more space
to work the beauty of it is that I like
to say when we’re finished we package it
up and gift wrap it’s a gift wrapped
right because this can go to the site be
installed the house is built around it
and you have a smart home the bathroom
was the next prototype this maybe you
saw this in the research magazine but
this is starts with a smart mirror a
smart mirror that gives you the
information of what’s happening in your
bathroom the bathroom has an ability to
detect who it is using the bathroom so
it presets your custom displays it can
preset the height of your vanity it can
preset your music or your lighting we’re
using this as an opportunity to
incorporate some on the market
technologies that Kohler provides like
this this toilet seat automatically
automatically
is when you leave they call it the
marriage saber but even even better as
we have at and we have a way to activate
the Amazon – button so now when you’re
running out of toilet paper you get an
automatic reorder without even thinking
about it free delivery in two days but
my favorite part of the bathroom and the
kitchen now is that with this adjustable
vanity and the ability to move the lower
drawer we can accommodate a wheelchair
with the sensor that’s in the floor that
gives you your weight up on the mirror
just like Pablo’s research we can
identify when someone has fallen on the
bathroom floor
and the text message can be sent to a
caregiver we’re looking at how to easily
operate appliances things that can be
dangerous like working and you know like
opening another door or refrigerator
door so this this project is really
branching out and it’s it’s it’s it’s
crossing the university in so many
different areas that bathroom can be
packaged up and gift-wrapped again the
living room is – partridges which is an
experiment for this Censored home we’re
looking at the psychology of comfort of
light and we’re pre pre operating or pre
controlling the lights based on what
tasks are happening in the space whether
you’re vacuuming and you need lots of
light reading a book and you need warm
light or watching a movie and you need
dramatic lines we’re even taking taking
the opportunity to look at materials of
building my goal in life is to eliminate
drywall from the construction process
people say oh but it’s so easy to repair
well it’s so easy to damage right we’re
looking at beautiful prefabricated
panelized systems you know you don’t see
drywall in your car right it’s panelized
systems factory fabricated systems we
even have a facial recognition system on
the door that recognizes you when you
arrive and it will open the
for you currently as we speak we’re
working on the bedroom and home office
of the future that will complete the
suite of components that will eventually
build on campus or install on campus
this project is a concept it’s an
investigation of the concept of flex of
space where a moving cartridge that’s a
storage wall or a closet can move 12
feet back and forth between two spaces
and accommodate more space from one room
to the other depending on which room
you’re using it introduces a laundry
room or it introduces a walk-in closet
to demonstrate that we built this this
this wall it was in Las Vegas at the
Greenville conference just last month
and this demonstrates that idea it’s a
moving wall here you have a living room
and a home office that wall can move
back and forth if you need a bed a
Murphy bed can fold from the wall now
you have an extra bedroom the idea is if
you have an ability to expand your
office you don’t have to commute every
day back and forth to work we are also
looking at how we share technology so
you’ve got that 75 inch TV screen well
that’s green can’t ah go back and forth
between the office or the living room
depending on where you want that monitor
in the back side is a high-definition
printed photograph just a beautiful
piece of art all of these cartridges are
here on campus we’re still we use this
as a research laboratory eventually we
will gift wrap them all ship them to our
site and we’re gonna build this out at
the research center we’re going to build
a building that explores all aspects of
building of the future my favorite
potential for this idea is we just got a
call from an architecture firm up in New
York that saw this idea and they want to
partner with us to make disaster-relief
housing for Ecuador for their earthquake
in Ecuador so we’ve designed a
bathroom and kitchen cartridge that
we’re gonna set up a facility for them
in Ecuador so they build it they hire
their own people they build their
cartridges and you can simply take that
one cartridge to a job site and then
build the house around it but that we
have a wide area focused with this it’s
not just housing we’re looking at
hospitals and we’re looking at Aging in
Place or senior care facilities because
there’s so much opportunity when you
when you have a chance to integrate
technology into these structures we also
are branching out across the university
computer science mechanical engineering
business psychology gerontology one that
I want to really point out here is our
partnership with the macromolecular
Institute that’s with Tim long and Chris
Williams
we’re looking at new materials for smart
exterior wall systems phase change and
vapor barriers we call this relationship
between us and them and DuPont from
molecules to modules thought that was a
catchy title like we just mentioned
we’re gonna be in Dubai in 2018 and
we’re looking at for the opportunity to
take all of these ideas all of this
research and apply it to a NetZero
energy home and show the world what
we’re doing here at Virginia Tech thank
you [Applause]