Back to the Future: Challenges of Experimental House Projects designed for Future Scenarios
Marta Grbić, Sanja Nikolić
https://doi.org/10.60152/k81s6ct1
Abstract: Prediction of new ways of living is repeatedly used as unlimited inspiration for architectural design through history. Narrowing down the range of the research in order to understand the flux of historical ideas for future living, we focused on the design of domestic environments imagined for various future scenarios and challenges. The aim was to create a clearly cross-examined overview of projects of houses dating from 1927 to 2009 by extracting and defining their aims, strategies and imagined future scenarios. We endeavoured to present the breakthrough radical designs, but also a series of Japanese capsule drawings. The focus was on compact and transformable spaces. Speaking of the concept of ‘home of the future’, its breakthrough showed up as a result of the twentieth-century revolutions and wars, with the birth of new after-war societies and their new needs; as a result of industrial and technological revolutions and as a result of architects’ eternal intrigue for tomorrow. The birth of television had been defining our living spaces from 1940s until the arrival of internet overtook that role. The ‘press button’ fantasies induce creation of labour-saving designs, which is nowadays realized in fully automated smart houses. The mobile houses marked 1960s and 1970s. However, the sci-fi imagination from the movies in the same period also directly inspired configuration of ‘smart’ houses. Dramatic growth of population throughout the whole twentieth century made various space-minimising and flexibility-maximising strategies. On the contrary, many alternative projects activate emotional and psychological realm through surreal, idyllic and natural and dreamy shapes in homes. After all, we can say that our contemporary notion of domesticity appears through self-sufficiency, mini living, nomadism and efficiency. The ‘future’ preoccupation triggered some meaningful exhibitions, articles and books that gave the overview for published projects within this topic.
Keywords: experimental housing, house of the future, radical design, Japanese metabolism, mobile house.
How to cite this Paper (Harvard referencing style):
Grbić, M and Nikolić, S. (2024) ‘Back to the Future: Challenges of Experimental House Projects designed for Future Scenarios’, in R. Bogdanović (ed.) On Architecture — Shaping the City through Architecture, Proceedings. Belgrade, Serbia: STRAND, pp. 188–201.