Getting to real
The term "smart house" was coined in 1984 by the National Association of Home Builders, giving a name to the pending digital evolution of our homes. That was also the year Motorola began selling the beige, brick-like DynaTAC, the world's first manufactured mobile phone, but a full a quarter century before NEST, the first commercially viable, well-designed "intelligent thermostat." What a difference 25 years makes! Now, 30+ years later, your phone can manage your thermostats, view your web cams, turn on the lights — and your house feels pretty darned smart.
But ... "smart house" is a bit of a misnomer. Smart systems, yes, but in most cases these systems are being installed in houses that are fundamentally no smarter than they were 200 years ago, or more. That's why I decided to look at house design from the ground up, and find out what really is "smart" when it comes to building your home from scratch.
"Realsmarthouse® is NOT about the "Internet of Things." Most people who hear "smart house" think of home automation, web-enabled appliances that can talk to your phone. Cool technology, but do you really need the fridge to text you if you're low on milk? Probably not. That's why we put the "real" in realsmarthouse."
Finding smarts
realsmarthouse® design, with its utilization of Passive House standards, is an integrative construction practice that takes a broad but focused look at the physical requirements, environmental situations and technological potentials of a home. The physical requirements are what you want in a home — types and number of rooms, amenities and appliances, finishes, furnishings, etc. The environmental situation is your site's attributes derived from the earth (insulation, thermal mass, anchorage) from the sky (solar energy and heating, daylighting, air, winds and precipitation) and other factors, such as view and landscape. The technological potential, which is evolving daily, is the studied adoption of energy, security and environmental systems. All systems considered by realsmarthouse are proven and established, and their connecting infrastructure is specifically designed to easily enable upgrades as technologies improve.
"Future proof means creating a house where evolving technologies are easily accommodated. When you build a home that will last a very long time, having the option to rewire it 30 years on without tearing up the walls is a good thing."
Together, the physical requirements, environmental situations and technological potential of your home create a plan for living. The goal with realsmarthouse is to create beautiful, longterm living environments that are highly sustainable in terms of resources, energy, money and time. Additional benefits include built-in resistance to environmental hazards such as fire, pests, extreme weather events and bad air quality (with select air systems.)
Most of the technological advances in construction in the USA have taken place in the commercial sector, where the impact of material and energy efficiencies is greatly magnified by the obvious requirements of having to economically manage many more people and equipment under one roof. The single family residential sector has not had that incentive, but with energy costs, environmental concerns and worries about serious weather events, there's plenty of incentive to build more intelligently. The realsmarthouse bottom line: longterm value for property owners. That is our goal.
Good reads: The Rise of the Hybrid Home | Location: Daylight | Process: Design