You get a new smartphone every year, but when was the last time your apartment got a new OS? While buildings all have their individual quirks, they haven’t changed that much over the years—at least on their face. For instance, if you’re a New Yorker, you might even find yourself coveting a brownstone that was build around the turn of the 19th century—not exactly high tech.
But all of that may change in our lifetimes. 3D printing technology is getting more precise and powerful, bringing us ever closer to the next industrial revolution. Waves from that revolution will stretch all the way from landscaping to shoemaking and everything in between, construction materials included. Meanwhile, an energy crisis looms in the distance. Not only are we using up carbon based fuel sources at an alarming rate, but it’s clear that we need to stop the advancing of global warming before climate change hits catastrophic levels.
These trends colliding could bring significant changes, not just to how our cities function, but in how homes and buildings are constructed, too. It could mean structures decorated with massive green walls, or a new apartment built in days by machines alone. Let’s take a look at some of the innovative building designs that may be in your future—a lot sooner than you’d think.
A House Fresh Off the Printer
Even if we’re not in the throes of the next baby boom, the global population is still on the rise, and cities will have to grow along with it. Estimates peg the world population at 10 billion people by 2050, a massive increase. And all those people are going to need somewhere to live, or about 1.6 would be out on the streets.
Luckily, city planners, humanitarian organizations, and architects have technology on their side. 3D printing processes are finally starting to come of age, which could potentially streamline modular construction and reduce the cost to build enormously, and not just for the distant future. In May, Dubai unveiled the first fully printed building—which took a mere 17 days to construct. Printers layered a special cement mixture into modular components which were then assembled on-site, costing the builders around $170,000 overall.
Meanwhile, in the US, a 3D printing group called the Center for Rapid Automated Fabrication Technologies has teamed up with NASA to construct printed homes fit for extraterrestrial living—so one day, your grandkids might be checking out the rent on the dark side of the moon.
At Home in a Literal Greenhouse
If you think August in the city is hot right now, try sitting through one of the searing summers predicted for the near future. Research indicates that since the 1970s, temperatures have increased in urban areas, where the effects of global warming are felt significantly more than for rural dwellers—about 2.4 degrees more on average, in fact.
It’s called the urban heat island effect—the likelihood that densely-populated areas will experience warmer average temperatures than smaller communities. And to keep our cities from smoldering undeterred, builders and futurists have been encouraging architects to think about how we can lower average urban heat indexes. It turns out, one way to do this is by planting more green. Trees and other vegetation shade and cool surrounding surfaces, and when planted strategically, they can reduce area temperatures by 2 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit.
But how do you get that vegetation to survive in the concrete jungle, where square-footage is a precious commodity? The answer is to integrate that vegetation directly onto building surfaces, thereby constructing “living buildings.” In these plans, structures are constructed with green walls or roofs—surfaces covered in vegetative plant life that will both reduce summer temperatures, and serve as additional insulation during the winter.
Living walls and facades can be artfully integrated into a building’s design or even function as a decorative or artistic embellishment—all while purifying the surrounding air and reducing the effects of global warming. In fact, some research indicates that certain green building features could reduce the amount of energy we use on air conditioning by up to 70 percent, so they’d definitely be a welcome addition for most apartment dwellers.
Buildings with Solar Baked Right In
Apartment living has its perks—not having to do yard work, for instance—but paying the electric bill is definitely not a part of those pluses. In fact, in rental situations, you’re often at the disposal of a landlord who may or may not have your building’s energy efficiency (or your pocketbook!) in mind. But all of that may change with the integration of solar power in urban buildings.
Admittedly, solar for rentals has been a little bit of a non-starter—building owners, who by and large aren’t responsible for electricity costs, aren’t as eager to install costly retrofitted solar panels over their apartment rooftops. But panels aren’t the only way to soak up the sun. A new technology, called organic photovoltaics, makes it possible to distribute small solar cells into other materials, like plastics and glass. And that advance could change the face of architecture as we know it.
Building-integrated photovoltaics, or BIPV for short, is a new construction theory that would integrate solar power directly into building materials. The solar would be integrated not just on rooftops, but on windows, facades, balconies, or even railings—they’d all work together to generate electricity for the building’s residents. Most experts predict only good things for solar energy’s future. Elon Musk, for instance, has already launched a residential solar battery called the Powerwall. And the International Energy Agency, a group that works to address energy concerns in 29 separate member nations, says solar will overtake coal as the number one power source by 2050, so in all likelihood, your future home will be powered by the sun.
The apartments of the future will likely be a lot more high tech—and sustainable—than the ones we live in today. Now, if they could only invent something that would get your repairs made on time!
Contributing Writer
Erin Vaughan
Erin Vaughan is a blogger, gardener and aspiring homeowner. She currently resides in Austin, TX where she writes full time for Modernize.com, with the goal of empowering homeowners with the expert guidance and educational tools they need to take on big home projects with confidence.
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