Ultimate One-Story House Plan Update and Ultimate Future City

I got to bed late last night, so today’s post is lame and rambling, just like always. I decided to update my ultimate one-story house plan, and also describe the ultimate future city.

See my previous posts for details that make the one-story floor plan special. In this update I made a few tweaks toward perfection based on your comments.

1. Moved the kid bathroom to the end of the hall connecting their two bedrooms.

2. Added a guest bathroom off the laundry room, with an entry past a fountain for maximum privacy while still being central to the house.

3. Moved the mud room to the garage entrance.

click to enlarge.

Someone asked about the ultimate city plan. I have that too, conceptually.

The biggest problem with any city is all the traffic. And much of that traffic can be avoided if the city is designed right. I imagine homes above ground, connected by a network of underground bike and robot paths.

The bike paths would allow weather-free, flat paths, and parking, from anywhere to anywhere in the city. No cars to contend with, and wide enough for senior citizens to putter around in their trikes while kids zip around in the fast lane.

The robots would be like larger versions of the Roomba vacuum cleaning robot, but designed to pick up and deliver merchandise and food from one place to another. Every home would have an elevator to the underground area where the robots would deliver goods and wait for you to unload.

Imagine ordering anything you want over the Internet, and your cell phone alerts you when the delivery robot is waiting beneath your house to be unloaded. It can wait all day, because there are plenty of robots to go around. The robots would have their own dedicated paths, separate from the bikes, and accessible only by service technicians.

Commuting would be unnecessary if your co-workers and most customers also lived in the city. Each home would be equipped with a home office (or two) that provides the ultimate telecommuter setup. Just insert your earpiece and have your avatars hold online virtual meetings. If you need to courier documents or prototypes, the underground robots do it in minutes.

Homes would be built in clusters around comprehensive health club facilities, like the one near me, www.ClubSports.com. It has everything from spa facilities to yoga to tennis to rock climbing to dancing. Membership would be included in city taxes, and would pay for itself in reduced healthcare.

When you needed to travel beyond your block, but within the city, taxis and public transit would do most of that job.

That’s the basic outline of the ultimate future city. It still needs work.

Comments

[Vee]

For the Ultimate One Story House - you have bathrooms and laundries all over the place. Why wouldn't you have the plumbing all along the one wall or rather one side of the house?

[Eli]

Scott-
Have you even seen new galactica?!?!?!? Robots=Cylons

[Leo]

I'll cut to the chase. The future city in mind would:

1) have the maximum number of people living in minimal area possible. This would mean tall (very tall) buildings.

2) run on renewable energy. Therefore solar panels wherever possible and a wind turbine on every possible rooftop.

3) have minimal dependence of water from surrounding water sources. Therefore rainwater harvesting would be practiced.

4) be such that people dont have to travel much. This would mean communities would be made such that people work in offices on the lower floors of the buildings, and live in the apartment houses on top. So travelling to work would involve taking the elevator (at least for most of the people).

5) have very efficeint public transport that would be the personal/public rail network thats still in the testing stages.

6) have cars and other means of personal transport that run ONLY on clean energy.

7) have plenty of green spaces and playgrounds. Parks and fields would be common, but most importantly, it would be required that most buildings have roof-top gardens and maybe even small playgrounds.

8) have universities lined on the outskirts of the city and not on the inside.

9) have separate lanes for cars, bicycles, and service vehicles (such as police vehicles and ambulances).

10) have an underground system for shipping goods automatically.

etc.

[Trayce]

This is a little after the fact, but after reading about your Ultimate Future City I was watching a show about Australia on my iPod and they mentioned a city called Coober Pedy. It's an opal mining town of almost 2000 people and they all live underground. Looked pretty cool. The way they filmed it on the show it looked entirely underground, but pictures on the net would indicate there are a few places still above.

The show I was watching is available on iTunes. Search in TV Shows for Discovery Atlas, Season 1, In Atlas: Australia...

Enjoy!

[Hula Dog]

Disney World started it. It's the best example of a future city. Shame Disney's ideas went with him. Maybe you can pick up the torch.

[Andy]

I'd question the fountain right next to the bathroom if you have any friends who tend to overindulge in alcohol or other mind-altering substances.

[Lindserzz]

A good idea for your ultimate city would be to have really big skyscraper complexes that could be for example a health facility on one floor and a restaurant/food court on another and a grocery store on another. The entire city could be built up like this which could also decrease the traffic in the city beacuse people wouldn't have to drive from place to place.
I also think it would be better for the homes to be built in clusters around these instead of the government funded health facilities so that instead of driving everywhere people would be able to walk.

[Ed]

The German Ruhr University of Bochum is conducting experiments with a large-scale model for an automated subterranean transport system. It would use unmanned electric vehicles on rails that travel in a network through pipelines with a diameter of 1.6 meters, up to distances of 150 kilometers. Sending cargo goods through underground pipelines is anything but new — see this scan of a 1929 magazine article about Chicago's underground freight tunnel network (more details). Translating this concept to the 21st century would be something like introducing email for things: you could order something on the Internet and pick it up through a trapdoor in your cellar the next morning.

http://slashdot.org/articles/08/03/06/161209.shtml

[Anttitti]

I don't know how the climate is where you're living Scott, but her in Finland it's quite essential to have a large walk-in closet next to the foyer. This is the place where all shoes and "outside clothes" as in jackets etc. are stored. But this is apparently a big cultural difference: we take our shoes off in the foyer and actually have a word for "outside clothes". Or maybe I'm just being ignorant?-)

[Alice in Wonderland]

Love it! And it isn't time to have community cafeterias? Forcing everyone to cook their own meals is so inefficient in so many ways.

[Jeff]

Houses, or indeed individual buildings, are ineffecient and wasteful, as well as contributing to sprawl and the various ineffecincies that creates. Which is a HUGE problem in terms of our resources. It's one of the major concerns among city planners today. We need more high rises, condense our cities, lessen the distance from work to home.

If you must make underground roads, picture the largest possible city you can imagine your city becoming, triple that, and plan for that. Worked for London's underground.

[Arthur]

A couple comments on the houseplan:

1) Not a big fan of putting basement stairs directly connected to the garage - if some idiot leaves the car running in the garage, all the nasty fumes and Monoxide runs down the stairs into the basement - annoying at best, deadly at worst.

2) Seperate his and hers master closets are a necessity (if you know what's good for you....)

3) You might build the cat bathroom as part of the laundry room, making it more centrally located. Otherwise the cat might not want to make the long hike, and just pee on the LR rug.

4) Laundry room next to the living room is problematical. Washers and Dryers are noisy, unless you have great soundproofing you will have to try to enforce a "no laundry when the TV is on" rule. Good luck with that.

5) Unless you have no problem with snacking, having to go through the kitchen to get to the office is going to be an issue.

6) The odd shaped rooms and large number of doors in most rooms is going to make furniture placement a real challenge.

But hey, house design is always a hoot, enjoy!

[John]

If the majority of the action was taking place underground, that would really even the playing field for super heros like spider man that depend on swinging from high rise buildings over the street. He would still have his spidy sense, but that's not enough to defeat evil do-ers alone.

http://awritersblock.com

[John]

It need a room surrounded by poured concrete walls to act as a tornado shelter.. or if its like most commercial buildings, the bathrooms are the shelters, with a foot thick concrete walls.

[olie]

"Homes would be built in clusters around comprehensive health club facilities[...] Membership would be included in city taxes, and would pay for itself in reduced healthcare."

What healthcare costs does a city incur?

When I get sick, do I cost the city money? Where's the savings to the city by keeping me healthy?

Needs work but, overall, seems like a good start.

Oh yeah -- I'm one of those libertarian-utopia guys. Don't charge me taxes for something I don't want. Make everything use-tax based.

[rwc]

You have the storage room as "un-conditioned". Given most building codes require heat/cooling for every room it may be cheaper to condition the room than to make the explanation for the waiver.

I like the tunnel scheme, but given how expensive it is to underground utilities, undergrounding transportation would be massively expensive. You know, for that early Saturday morning bucket of cold H2O...

[Surabaya Stew]

Great job on the house, Scott! Thank you for listening to your readers suggestions, comments, and advice. Now when are you going to get this drawn up by an Architect? -hint, hint...

[Eric]

Robots: good! No need to manually unload your purchases, the material could be packaged in standard-sized totes, and the robot just dumps it on your porch, and takes off.

Underground: good idea, but expensive! Excavation work is very costly. Much cheaper to build enclosed insulated paths aboveground. Not as pretty, though.

Government funded health clubs: Awful idea! They would be awful. Long lines, no competition, broken gear... we need competing centers for quality.

[@Rob]

Conception is always fun. I have many issues with the ideas like security and the robots that are running around. It's not the robots it's the dumb people that get in their path and get hurt. It's not that I really care that the dumb people get hurt, it just puts more strain on the health care system.

I can see the crew of Jackass building a simple device that will allow them to catch a ride via a robot while riding their skateboards. Someone will end up getting hurt and be taken to the hospital. Then an x-ray will be shown of the hurt guy and you'll be able to see an outline of their privates or their poo or a toy car that they shoved up into themselves the night before. Please, no robots.

[No one]

What about the fact that I /enjoy/ driving to work? It's relaxing, it gives me time to listen to NPR in the morning, and it's mentally stimulating in a way very different from work or play.

[Robin]

Take a look at the original EPCOT concept. Similar goals, different execution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_Prototype_Community_of_Tomorrow_%28concept%29

[Mark]

The house seems to have a central theme (the main room) so if you're sociable, that seems to work. There doesn't seem to be any chokepoints (where you have to swear as you carry the bed to the bedroom) so that's fixed.

Not my style, but that's me.

As to the city, what you need is to make it worth walking around. Nowadays, everyone's working so you don't have the wife doing a daily shop. And a weekly shop at the moment means you have to have a car to carry the stuff home. And carrying goods makes walking around the shops less worthwhile.

So have people buy their items and allow them to chalk them up for delivery. When you've done shopping, all the goods are delivered "then". This would mean that you'd have to have some collection scheme to have the goods from each shop collected to a central store and held there until the last item shopped for turns up, boxed up and shipped out to the customers' homes.

If the shopping arrives 20 minutes later than you, it doesn't matter, but if it turns up 3 hours later, you're going to want to carry the shopping yourself and that gets us back to the original problem.

As to the problem of goods requiring labour to offload, this doesn't happen all that much and in any case usually means the item is transported from a warehouse in another state/county and will turn up "Thursday", so isn't a huge problem, IMO.

And for those complaining you still have to have a physical presence, WALK. If it's 2 miles, unless it's mountainous, that's a half-hour walk. Less if you're fit. Anything up to 4 is eminently walkable.

[Marco]

who needs robots when the earth is already teeming with moist robots?

[NotSoShyJan]

Scott;
I LOVED the floor plan. Since my *swear word* knees restrict me at a young age to a one floor house; this is the best plan that I have seen. Although you sure seem to have a fixation on the "storage room". Just kidding. That's what garages are for.
The city idea sounds wonderful, if we can get a couple of billionaires to fund them.

[Benedict42]

In reference to paying spa membership with city taxes:

"There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want, simply because you think it would be good for him." - Robert Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

Yeah. So there.
No offense, but people like you with such good intentions (upon which the path to hell is built) are the reason for the increasing amount of socialism in America. Which is bad.

[Benedict42]

In reference to paying spa membership with city taxes:

"There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want, simply because you think it would be good for him." - Robert Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

Yeah. So there.
No offense, but people like you with such good intentions (upon which the path to hell is built) are the reason for the increasing socialism in America. Which is bad.

[Stui]

One major flaw with your ideal city scott, you seem to assume that the majority of people who work can telecommute and that people can satisfy all their retail needs over the internet.

People will still need to travel to get to a Doctor; Hospital; School; kids sporting event; go to the movies; go out for a meal etc. The people who work at the hospital; movies; restaurent still need to get to and from work. As will tradesmen; police; firemen; ambulences etc.

basically, you will still need a road network even if you reduce the amount of traffic it takes.

[Tyro]

Much better than the original (2 story)
Still, would be interesting to see the whole thing drawn to actual scale/measured.
Seems like the master closet is huge. Also I'm not sure if there is enough seating around the TV.
In the dining area, are there fixed-cushioned-cafe-style- benches? That is an awesome idea, my wife/friends/I always rush to be the one sitting on that side and not on the dodgy chairs.

[DWH]

The city plan sounds like a big step backward.Not too long ago people were born and died in the same town or village.Your city plan makes it seem like nobody leaves their home,let alone their town.That was the impression I got anyway.

[Jesper]

Great idea with the underground bicycle paths. It's actually already in use in Denmark (in a suburb to Copenhagen called Albertslund). Well, to be perfectly honest the tunnels are not underground all the way, but they are completely separated from car traffic and go under all the car roads.

I have only visited the city twice, with bus, and both times it was quite confusing since the side walk seems to have disappeared when you get of the bus. You have to find the stairs down to the "soft traffic paths" / tunnels to walk around.

Maybe I should write the city administration of Albertslund and convince them to be the first city in the world with a robot courier system...

[partgypsy]

Compared to the master bath the guest bath is pitifully small. Is the fountain to piss in?

[Scott Sheppard]

I have been reading your blog for a long time. At Autodesk Labs, we decided to have some fun with your ideas:

http://labs.blogs.com/its_alive_in_the_lab/2008/02/draw.html

[Nirav]

Unlike suburban sprawls, you oculd have tall skyscrapers, with sports clubs in each buildings, you could have well connected public transport, cycle lanes, and you underground robots are fine as well.
I would love office to be away from home, else home might get too bad.

And by the way I have a wonderful apartment plan.
The washing machine is in the kitchen, and ironing board in the living room, thus never a problem for me.
personally in a house I would love to have a bar in the basement some place to chill out with friends

[Anne]

I guess this is what you get when you float new ideas in a room full of Dilbert fans... a whole bunch of wanna-be PHBs looking for ways to shoot the ideas down.

Right-sized houses, integrated with work, shopping, and low commute requirements are the future.

[Jeffrey Ellis]

Pneumatic tubes are the way to go, not robots. I think Heinlein used this idea too.

[MJ]

You will not want to have the master bathroom share a wall with a kids' room. My master bath does just this with my 4 and 6 year old sons' room -- their bunks are on that very wall. When I get up for an extra early meeting, without the fail, the kids also wake up due to shower noise.

There's nothing that will guarantee a sexless week more than being the reason why 50% of your children are awake at 5 in the morning.

[dipy911]

Yeah, lets get rid of bicycles on our streets. They aren't really vehicles and are used by poor people only. No one should walk. Let's force people to sit in their chair for 24-hours a day. No exercise allowed because of using too many calories.

Maybe we should hook everyone up to virtual reality and use their bodies as a big battery to power the robots?

[Josh]

I like the city plan, but why couldn't you just have some sort of box that the delivery robots could leave your stuff in, so it can then move on to the next delivery.

[Zog the Infinite]

[If you picked a flat location, with nothing on it, and trenched instead of tunneled, then covered and reinforced the trenches to form a tunnel, would the cost drop a lot?. It certainly requires a big investment either way. -- Scott]

No. Certainly trenching a tunnel instead of boring it costs less. But you're still digging a deep trench, retaining walls on either side, and a roof structureand floor slab - plus having to joint everything to avoid buckling from expansion and compression, plus waterproofing the expansion joints to avoid waterlogging the concrete. Plus then you'll have to constantly do concrete repairs - every 10-20 years.

Plus, tunnels are a safety disaster - nobody feels safe in tunnels. Everything you put in there (such as security lighting) has to be extremely vandal-resistant. But the sense of security still sucks because the tunnel will be full of homeless people. Underground cities like downtown Toronto are great, but only because there are large numbers of people already there, with retail and everything.

I encourage you to write about your city of the future, Scott. We need more horrifying dystopias. 1984 is so old-hat and Huxley was kinda ghey. Just don't use my idea of tying all the citizens down onto gurneys in 4'x6' cells with catheters up their wee-wees. Or maybe you can just find some way of keeping heads alive in jars like on Futurama, and then just cut everyone's body off?

I especially like your idea of sending all the cyclists into the tunnels so you don't have to see them - maybe we can make all the coloured people use the tunnels too? They don't deserve sunlight either.

[Harley]

There is one flaw in your basic set of assumptions ... that each house will occupied by 2 parents ( or 1 ) What about homes where polygamy is the foundation of the family system ?

The South African president-to-be is about to marry his 6th wife ( while still married to many of his others ...)

[Zog the Infinite]

Dumb idea. Nobody gets any exercise so they're all drafted into health clubs. Why don't we just put the entire population into 4'x6' cells, and chain them to beds with a TV installed in the ceiling and a catheter up their peehole? If it's good enough for Afghan POWs, it's good enough for American citizens.

Go visit the historical section of any classic European city. They're liveable, beautiful, and have very low numbers of fat people.

The problem with traffic is idiots driving 60 miles a day to work, driving their kids to soccer practice, driving to the corner to buy groceries, driving their kids to school across the road, and so on. The solution is to impose a $5/gallon gas tax and build all local roads 2.5 metres wide.

That provides a conducive environment for having small stores and restaurants on all the main roads, never more than 500m away from any house. Because it's too much of a pain to drive there - though of course you can fit several bikes on a 2.5m road cross-section. Goodbye big box stores, hello neighbourhoods again.

Main roads can be 5m wide to be large enough for 1 tram in each direction. Now you can walk to a main road and take a tram to nearby subway or strassbahn stations, if you have to go across town or to the city's intercity train station. Whoops! Now you've just built a European city. Amazingly liveable.

[Botter]

German car designers have had a collision avoidance system unveiled about in 2000. It has a tiny radar (the kind now put in passenger side dashboards to slow down the airbag deployment if the passenger is too close to the dash board or a child) that determine distance to the car ahead and will automatically apply your brakes if the car in front of you stops. The accidental result was that cars could all accelerate through a green light at the same time. As most cars on the road are less than 4 years old, once it enters mass production, there will be a dramatic decrease in injuries from collisions (most collisions are rear endings of stopped vehicles at stop lights) and decrease traffic jams. The current plan, the government will build wider roads and schedule busses will be replaced by individual cars with improved traveling efficiency. Its kinda of like in the the 60's, when some people thought that there would be one huge super fast super computer every would log onto, and instead, everyone got small interconnected computer.

[mara]

Why is the family room so tiny?

[Josh P.]

Because I love you underground bicycle path so much I'm adding another comment with some new ideas on how to make it better still...

Since the cost of adding access to the Underground Bike Trails (UBT) is practical only to new construction (not current cities), a UBT system for say Chicago could be more similar to our current interstate - entrance/exits every block or so instead of each house.

Very well lit, well drained, and well ventilated.

Public restrooms.

Pass local ordinances to prohibit the homeless/people without a bicycle.

Medical staff accessability.

[Great idea alert!] As the current roads undergo construction/repaving, add pressure thermoelectrocoupler plates - when a car above drives over the pressure plate a small amount of electricity is generated. That electricity can be used to heat/cool the UBT or be put back into the grid and the money put towards maintenance of roads/UBT.

[himanshu]

number 1 reason for traffic problems is not too many cars, but too many idiots on the road.

[himanshu]

WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO FUN OF SHOPPING??????
i am just voicing the concern of women here, who like to touch and choose everything before they buy.

[jerry w.]

Visit Montreal sometime, they didn't connect so much of the downtown area underground

just to hide the Frenchies, with 8 feet of snow in the winter you can't walk on the surface.

Bon jour!

http://boskolives.wordpress.com/

[keeffer]

"it still needs work." haha.

wouldn't it be better to let the cyclists ride above ground where they can enjoy nature, and make any cars that still exists use tunnels? besides, cyclists and pedestrians go together a lot better than cars and pedestrians.

on incliment weather days the cyclists use the robot tunnels and the robots can be programmed to give way to the cyclists.

PS- what kind of housing would us single people get to live in? i don't need that much space. i'm an architect, i've got a good idea of ways it could work, but i'd much rather see your take on it.

[eD]

Your acumen as an urban planner is equal to your architectural design expertise.
Good for a chuckle.
However, I did get chills at the thought that a democrat administration might look at these ideas and think, “Wow, dude, (insert sound of bubbling bong), that makes SENSE!”

[Glenn Covington]

I added a URL (http://sketchup.google.com/) for google sketchup. It is a pretty sweet (free) 3-D modeling software that is really easy to use. I used it to design my "future house." If you do that, you can share the file with others who have the free software. The sweet part about it is that you can draw the 2-D view and then grab the top and pull it up until it is the height you want.

[~C4Chaos]

what if the robots strike back? specifically, robot sex slaves.

http://coolmel.typepad.com/iblog/2008/02/would-you-have.html

~C

[Gabriel Leow]

I believe no plan can ever be perfect. Especially when you are talking about traffic problems. The number 1 cause of traffic problems, in my opinion, is that there are too many cars on the road!

Tunnel or no tunnels, the problem is not going to go away if you cannot control and rugulate the number of vehicles on the road/tunnel.

The ultimate city is one where travelling by a car is obsolete. Perhaps a novel invention towards this direction is the real cure?

[Dave]

Why should Health Club membership be included in city taxes? In an ideal city you wouldn't have to pay for anything unless you made use of it.

[keelerm]

You have written about coincidences before, or the lack thereof, so I thought it only fitting to bring this to your attention, Scott.

First, re-read the Dilbert comic for today.
Then read Penny Arcade (www.penny-arcade.com/comic).

[John E]

Here is the basic problem people would rather work near where they live than live near where they work. It sounds circular but it is not. People would much rather select where they live then find a job near there. But it doesn't really work that way because you need to have a job before you can buy a home. This makes the city unrealistic because you need to have the employeers there first. Plus people don't like to live the dense urban lifestyle. A large segment of the population will put up with 30 - 60 minutes commutes through congested traffic so they can have a half acre well manicured lawn. It may not make sense to me but neither does a giant SUV that never leaves the pavement and it is not for me to dictate where you live and what you drive.

[Michael S]

There was a segment on the news this morning about women-centric home designs. Several even have the second floor washer and dryer area that connect to most of the rooms and the pantry connected to the garage for easy access.

http://www.herreflectionhomes.com/

[Ben Gates]

My Friend told me about your blog, i think its awesome..!
Thanks for this blog, i will be your regular visitor...
http://howto.iblogger.org/

[Merlisk]

There are several Future City competitions. Most notably, IEEE does one: http://www.todaysengineer.org/2008/Feb/FCC.asp

There's even a kid's version for 7th and 8th graders: http://www.futurecity.org/

[LA Clay]

What the hell?!? Aren't you rich enough?

"Please note that the price of Dilbert's Guide to the Rest of Your Life: Dispatches from Cubicleland has increased from $10.15 to $12.95 since you placed it in your Shopping Cart. Items in your cart will always reflect the most recent price displayed on their product detail pages."

[Air Phloo]

When Salt Lake City was deciding what to do for mass transit pre-Olympics (they decided on boring old light rail), they talked about bike tunnels. One of the coolest things mentioned was that by putting a little wind in the tunnels, people could bike at 25 or 30 mph without much effort at all - assuming the tunnels were unidirectional. That would be pretty neat.

[Rack]

I'd like to think that by the time you could develop this kind of planned city people would have realised that the vast majority of jobs that are possible to do without a physical presence are entirely meaningless. I doubt people will ever realise this but I hate to start my futuristic visions on such a depressing note.

[DF]

I have to admit, I like the house design. Versatile enough to be tweaked for individual homeowners, but basic enough to make most normal people happy. Those of you with large collections of unopened toys that you need to display.... keep them in your parent's basement.

As for the city design, it is a good basic concept, however currently impractical, it is hopeful for the future. Telecommuting would be great, but impossible for at least half the jobs out there. A good start though, I'm glad someone out there is thinking...

[Kevin Kunreuther]

It appears to be a very idealistic community for white collar workers, something out of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr's Player Piano. How about designing futuristic living spaces for people who are financially disadvantaged but undoubtedly, will still be doing a lot of the work some people will not or can not do? It'll be a good long while before any self-maintaining robots that can excell at many of these types of jobs will appear.

[Anton Sekeris]

Ofcourse the perfect house needs additional bedrooms. I have three kids and the the ocassional house guests that sleep over ...

As far as your future city goes, you might enjoy 'caves of steel' by Isaac Asimov. Although in his case the housing is also subterranean, there are interesting parallels in his vision and yours.

[mike pollock]

Sorry Scott, I like the sunshine too much to like the idea of all travel taking place underground.

[Muppet]

Frankly, I like traveling (by foot, bike, car, bus or train) above ground. I don't like dark cold places for longer than a few minutes. If I can't see the sky, I get freaked out and claustrophobic. I don't know how those city dwellers do it everyday.
Europe has some of the best transit practices available to man and the trains don't use obnoxious whistles like they do in the midwest. Traffic rarely gets stopped by trains either. It's too late to add them in America though. We've built cities around roads for cars, trucks and buses. It's a shame too. Think about how many lives would have been saved by drunk drivers that could have taken the bus or train home instead of driving.

[Alex Andronov]

I'm sure somebody has said this already...

But why don't we put the cars underground? And leave the cyclists and pedestrians on the surface?

[mike]

City sounds like a nightmare to me. Where do the gangs of teenagers with nothing to do hang out? The Health Centre I guess. How about a place to genuinely relax, not just feel good about myself because - look everyone - I'm making myself healthy, how responsible am I? In Spain familys go for long walks together and socialise, I don't see any place for that here. In the UK & Ireland the adults go out on "pub-crawls" and get drunk, no room for that here.

Also what is it with robots and virtual meetings? Don't you want to talk to anyone Scott? People need to be with people, even if it is tough at times to socialise (especially where I work actually).

Okay we all have our fantasies. Just remember the Futurama warning about Human / Robot snoo snoo and maybe we'll all get out of this alive - actually that is the one thing we can guarantee won't happen...

[sven]

Book - A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander, highly relevant but hard to locate a copy, if you see it, buy it

[Hologram]

I'd like to add the situation of parking to your ultimate city. Obviously, there are going to be needs to travel in your own cars for something, in which case parking lots will be necessary. In order to save space, the parking will all be subterranean, with each commercially and industrial zoned building required to have a parking space for every person to the maximum capacity of the building, as determined by the local fire marshall. These parking structures could link up to the subterranean biking and robot paths, and the overall effect would be saved ground space, which would effectively reduce distances within the city, making it easier to get around.

[RustyRose]

I am not convinced that this city will be energy efficient. The biking idea is good for that though. Trouble is:

Tunnels need to be ventilated and air conditioned.
All those robots and elevators need electricity.

Imagine what would happen during a power failure.

Something I can suggest though, is a rooftop veggie garden, it gives some greenery, saves energy by reduding the need to transport fresh goods, and helps us appreciate where stuff comes from.

[Ken Ryan]

Check out _Oath_of_Fealty_ by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. They have an above-ground arcology (sp?) that is almost self-contained including its own government. Todos Santos is a mucking big cube with everything inside. Story revolves around the tensions between the city and the adjoining conventional city (Los Angeles IIRC).

I especially like the diving board mounted on the roof for the enjoyment of residents who go bug-nutty living in a place like that.

Think Of It As Evolution In Action!

[David]

If you're going through the trouble of digging tunnels, why not move the /cars/ down there? It would be so much more pleasant to have your biking and walking paths up top where you can get some sunshine and breathe fresh air.

I've always thought it was a neat idea to simply move your "ground floor" up. Elevate your sidewalks, and even cover the streets entirely. Up at "ground" level, you never have to see/hear/dodge cars. All the benefits of a tunnel at a fraction of the cost.

[Proz]

maybe it's just me but riding around in underground tunnels on my bike doesn't really appeal to me, maybe if you made the tunnels above the ground elevated above the roads in the city, the view would be so much better and ventilation would be a lot more efficient than however you planned on doing it with underground tunnels.

[rd]

the house is getting cosier and cosier, i'm glad you added the fontain though in a different place then auspiciously prescribed :)
never mind
i noticed other changes too but not sure that all were influenced by my humble suggestions
futuristic cities i always imagined something round and huge floating in the air on many different levels which is all of course totally implausible

[adam]

I've been in Japan for 4 years now and I love my sliding doors. The only swinging doors I have are my front door, back door and door to the toilet. Everything else slides, and they are removable also. I have 2 rooms that share a wall, but that wall consists of sliding panels, so I can take those out easily and make one large room. The downside to this is there isn't much insulation against noise, but if you build them with the tight material, then you can fix it, mine are basically made of very thick paper.
Since doors are removable, if I have to move a large piece of furniture, it becomes a snap. Japanese houses are very efficient because they have to make the most of what little space there is, you might want to look into it while you are planning your ultimate one story house.

There are also sliding doors that slide into the wall so they don't take up wall space either.

[quantum_flux]

You should do a little detailing on this beauty!

http://usera.imagecave.com/quantum_flux/Halfbaked_Ideas/FutureTourismLand.jpg

[Rachel D. C.]

Hi Scott,
I have been reading a book that seems relevant to an issue that we discussed earlier on your blog: whether there are any cases of state-sanctioned discrimination of certain groups. If you'll remember, a popular example was that of atheists. You said that we probably shouldn't count that because it isn't written into the law, but I think if you read some of the examples of discrimination against atheists in Richard Dawkins' book, The God Delusion, you would agree that the types of discrimination going on against us now are just as effective. Whether it is concerning an individual's applying for conscientious objector status, or a group's seeking nonprofit group status, or a protestor seeking protection during a rally from police, atheists get discriminated against by the government all the time. Even the president has said on record that we should not be considered citizens. If the police, military, local and state government and the president treat us like shit, isn't that good enough to say that we're discriminated against? You should really check this book out. It's awesome.

Rachel DC

[Derek]

interesting one story home, but you can't have 2 doors to the bathroom when kids are involved. one or the other will constantly be locked out, either intentionally or just out of forgetfulness. It would be a constant nightmare to break up the fights.

[rita mae]

That's it!!! I've had enough!!!

I read all posts and still think your house is too much work. Less is more, remember? When I was raising my kids, we didn't care about how many doors you had to the bathroom, or if there was a mud room. The kitchen area next to the sliding patio door was the mud room, albeit only the small part where they entered before I screamed at them "Take off your shoes, you little *&#^@**s. You think I clean all day so you can mess up the house as soon as you get home?" Ha Ha I never said that. They found me resting on the sofa and took their shoes off as they came in so that they wouldn't disturb me. They and all the friends they brought home would then all raid the fridge and run to the basement to play.

We had two full baths and that was enough (with seven kids). They took turns. Made them what they are today. In the morning, we left the shower on, and one would get in at the back of the tub when the other finished and got out at the front of the tub. The only one with any privacy was the princess baby girl. She would scream if the boys came near when she was in the bathroom. Then they would all have to run upstairs to the other bathroom. (Cape Cod houses are great. We had bunk beds stacked everywhere and always had someone sleeping over for the night.) Still do as a matter of fact. Don't have the bunk beds, but have futons, and day beds, and a crib, and play pen, and single beds in the basement with a pull-out sofa sleeper down there, also. Where do all my kids want to sleep? On the couches upstairs so they can all talk to each other.

You people are too worried about your houses. Start worrying about your family. Fill your freezer with ice cream and your fridge with root beer. Enough said.

I have been at work since 8:00 this morning and it is 8:30 at night. No lunch break. Ate at my desk. Tax season. I'm rambling, ain't I?

Shit, I have to go home. I'm too tired to work. Better go drive a Honda on the icy roads instead. BWAHAHAHAHA

Rita (love company) Mae

[Matt]

Your city reminds me of the the Spacer Worlds in Asimov's Caves of Steel books.
The Spacer Worlds were underpopulated, and depended on robot labor and deliveries.
People worked at home and grew very isolated from others.

[D. Mented]

I like the underground tunnels (in areas where the ground will permit) needs some overhead as well.
Sadly, you underestimate the number of support jobs needed for every high-end job that lends itself to telecommuting. Public transit is an absolute necessity, but cities that plan their public transit to handle large volume and bypass areas that need repair before they build the city itself do quite well.
The concept that's hard to get past is "space is money"...For quality of life, you need wide streets with big medians, plenty of sidewalk space, parks, trees and shrubs all over the place, and open spaces. You can combine high-rise buildings with this plan, but start jamming structures up against eachother and funneling traffic through narrow streets and stress increases exponentially.
A city that maintains its open feel is one where people will want to live. They'll pay a lot to get in. Space becomes more and more valuable, making it impossible to keep owners from subdividing lots and crowding more buildings in...Eventually, the city is no longer gracious and relaxed, so people start moving out, leaving lots of ugly downtown real estate abandoned.
I've watched this in my hometown, and now it's happening here in my transplanted hometown.
Nothing a culture of responsibility regards breeding couldn't take care of in a few generations, but that won't happen.
D. Mented

[Allison]

What about gardens and people who have hobbies that aren't television approved - ie. the fashion mags/police don't like it. where is the room for us?

[cubicle refugee]

A couple of other people got here ahead of me: what you're talking about is somewhere between a well-planned conventional city and an arcology. Some forward-thinking places are already doing a lot with bike paths &c., so this seems feasible in some ways.

My biggest concern about your urban design is that telecommuting has its limits. Sometimes you actually want to be face-to-face with your co-workers: not always, I admit, but sometimes. So your plan also needs to accommodate conventional workplaces where people actually interact directly.

You also need some sort of light rail or other public transport, for moving people between cities (or within the city when the weather is too crappy for cycling). I know you mentioned this in your original post, but it got only one phrase at the very end, and it's worth emphasizing: good public transport is a critical part of good urban design. (I have a long monologue ready on this subject, which I'll spare you.)

Here's the question, though, Scott: are you just noodling around with blueprints for better houses and cities, or might you actually do something with your ideas? If this is the sort of thing that interests you, *please* think about finding a way to have a concrete influence on American urban planning. It's important, for reasons that I'm sure are already obvious to you.

[Bassman]

I know so you don't have to keep expanding the tunnels in your Utopian society, you could control the demographics by euthanising everyone on their 30th birthday...

Thanks, but no thanks. I'll continue to take my cycle rides above ground where I can enjoy the view. And I'll continue to live in my slightly less than perfect, but somewhat personalised single storey house.

I'm with Jerry W. Stop flogging the dead horse and get back to the penis jokes. They weren't funny but at least you knew what you were talking about.

[Josh]

The Japanese have made a better design (in my opinion). It would be a tower, so it would use less space, and it would be less expensive and dangerous because there wouldn't be any tunneling.

http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/bu/?id=skycity1000-tokyo-japan

[Josh P.]

As an avid cyclist I think the underground tunnel system is a fantastic idea - add some professional security elements (monitored cameras, emergency call boxes, police on bikes), multiple entrance/exit ramps to the aboveground world, and some maintenance stations and we're all set.

The perfect place to implement your idea is Chicago - terrible weather, polution, and congestion. We already have plenty of money to fund the project too if we can just convince the politicians to stop embezzeling the money for private/family use.

[Dave B.]

Large networks of underground tunnels are a strange idea coming from someone who lives in a state known for earthquakes. Is there a different city plan for places where tunnels aren't an option?

[Taxi guy]

A couple things:

Make the mud room a full bathroom. It's nice to be able to clean up after coming in from the yard or shop and drop off dirty clothes in a hamper there.

How about a shop next to or as part of the garage?

Consider a laundry room in the basement and laundry chutes from each of the closets.

Regarding the garage: how many cars there? I assume the three arrows means a three car garage. The number of stalls will determine the footprint from the kitchen to the garage and could move the shop further in or out.

The roof has to be considered. Are you going for any type of solar heating or lighting? Maybe square up the floorplan unless you are going for a very articulate style of exterior and a roof with many sections and/or gables.

How about a storage room for lawn and garden equipment and patio furniture storage etc.: it could either be annexed to the house, garage, or be inside the garage or shop.

As for the futuristic city: Yikes! The potential for crime there is pretty significant.

[Ernie]

I live in NYC and I can't see how that would help us out a lot, Scott.
I'm always surprised no body considers putting the homes underground. A lot has been written about how incredibly energy efficient underground homes are. They are also somewhat depressing, sure, but its an option. I'd rather have a park over my home and the bicycles in the light with my HOUSE underground.

Anyway, in NYC, I've always thought - whats some of the biggest problems here? Transit, congestion, pollution. Anybody living in NYC can also tell you when it snows or god forbid, rains, the subways practically stop working anyway. The roads become inpenetrable due to pedestrian traffic slogging through water or ice.

When I was in Japan, I remember chunks of Tokyo with elevated pedestrian walkways. THAT's something the perfect city could use. Simply put a simple, lightweight (no car traffic = lightweight construction) footpath and possibly bike path that runs in the space over the sidewalks. they could even have a mesh like construction so it would drain to the street below. Make one set of stairs on each street corner. Put rain covers of some kind over the walkways. Now, when I exit my building and need to walk, I can bypass all the stoplights, car traffic, etc. If the path had a bike lane, even better. A lot of people would bike if they weren't scared of getting smushed by a delivery truck. Every bike messenger I know has been hit by a car or truck of some kind.

[pavel]

"Membership would be included in city taxes, and would pay for itself in reduced healthcare."

If you build it they will come, eh? I don't think the cost of healthcare would be significantly decreased.

I do not believe for a second that a free health club membership is really what's stopping unhealthy people from magically becoming healthier. If the health club next door showered me with coupons, I still wouldn't go (for many personal reasons, such as a crippling fear of strangers watching me wheeze and cough on a treadmill), and I'm someone who cares about his health (I exercise in my apartment complex gym, during the hours when nobody's around to watch me wheeze and cough.

[TimH]

I like the "improved" house design better, but would still like to see a half bath in/off the office. Believe me you'll be much happier if you don't have to trek across the house to use the facilities. Another thing to consider is within the actual bathroom design. Try to make sure you've got enough space available to closet or wall-off the toilet. Shared bathrooms mean you need the privacy!

[IceBlue]

Well, I hate to be sort of pointing finger person, but this (or almost this model, since I do not know your further insights in this ideal city scheme) model was proposed by Corbusier - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ville_Contemporaine. And this - La Ville radieuse (The Radiant City) - with some modifications.
Prototype model was established in Marseilles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit%C3%A9_d%27Habitation). Actually, due to sociourbanistic purposes, it never worked. And the whole theory of that is just too broad to explain here, so I am sorry of sounding apocalyptic, and not exactly proving it.
Now, I know, that such a model for USA would be basically suburban housing, as you like your closets so much:), with the same underground transportation, and not apartment housing. And again, it is a little bit too broad to explain, but suburban housing culture in general is already causing too many flaws in human society and especially in communicating (for references you might try Lewis Mumford "The City In History"), so it would make it even more killing if combined, than the same model with apartment housing. So in the whole ideal city does not in any damn way end with secluding you in home office ordering food online and once a week going to health center, actually.
Again, this just might be not enough data in your post for me to make such dead serious sermon here, so I apologize if jumping to conclusions so fast:)

[Jason Dumler]

For the house, move the master bedroom away from the children or guest bedrooms. Strangely enough, the layout you have is almost identical to the house I grew up in with minor differences.

For the city, you need to have some sort of above ground parks and such above the places where people are traveling underground. You should have lots of extra space for things like that.

[Mark]

The no commuting thing has already been challenged, but those of us who work at a widget factory can't telecommute every day.

[niCk(MemBeth)]

I envision the future with smaller community centers, surrounded by housing areas in outer rings. The community would be no more than two miles between central areas that contain business, shops, restaurants, with public houses (pubs) on every block for after hours, in-neighborhood entertainment.

The inner communities would be free from cars, and the toxic effects of transit systems, cars would be shared, and stored at nearby garage facilities to keep them in top working order, relieving individuals from the stress of car problems. Transit systems would be used to travel between communities.........

[Skeptical Fanboy]

Scott,

Your ultimate city plan describes a modified arcology, many of which have been postulated. The only one I know of under active development is Arcosanti in Arizona. Italian architect Paolo Soleri is the mind behind it, but (A) he's old and (B) he's never had much money to use on building Arcosanti, so even though it's been under construction for almost 40 years, it's less than a few percent done.

It's mostly a colony of hippies and other idealists who make bells and wind chimes to finance the (slow) construction.

If you really want to make your ultimate sustainable city of the future work, you might want to see if you can either co-opt the Arcosanti project or perhaps siphon off a few of the more charismatic people associated with the project to help you flesh out your plan and publicize it.

BTW: Mud room in the garage? Who are these people? I'd think you'd want the mud room at an entrance to the house to deal with visitors and anybody who'd gone in the yard during nasty conditions. If you're going to be that filthy coming home through the garage, you've got bigger problems, such as how to hose out your car.

[jerry w.]

The S.P.C.A. has been notified about your continued beating of a dead horse. Expect a visit.

Time to move in or sell that dream house, and come back to the real world already.

http://boskolives.wordpress.com/

[Fair Witness]

Crime in the tunnels? What about homeless people living in the tunnels? What about flooding in the tunnels? What about terrorists using the tunnels. Your utopia above ground leads to dystopia below.

[rpk]

The elevated houses in your city reminds me of the Jetsons. We never saw the ground in those cartoons. People moved away from the cities and into the suburbs to have a little bit of land they could call their own. It doesn't need to be 100 acres, but enough space to let the kids run around outdoors, (but not in traffic), or to have people over for a cookout.

People who already live in the city might view your ideas as an improvement, but those of us away from the noise, crime, and filth wouldn't be tempted to move downtown by this plan.

If you really want to improve things, build a car like they had in the Jetsons. Not only did it fly, but when you got where you were going you pressed a button and it folded up into a briefcase, thereby eliminating parking problems. That would make cities much better.

[Michael Casey]

I like your ramblings, Scott! I don't think they're lame at all.

The robots are a really neat idea. Someone might invent robot cars soon that could operate on our current above-ground roads, and that will get more people thinking like you are. Combined with hydrogen or electrical motors, an underground road system could work really well. My major qualm is biking underground; sunlight is a great stress relief, and has many health benefits besides. Surface bike paths shouldn't take up too much room. I'm currently working for a company that's built on telecommuting, and I strongly support that idea. As more workplaces realize and implement the concept, they'll adapt to its drawbacks and minimize them. I imagine renting conference rooms once a week to meet in person, mostly for morale reasons. Having contact like that is important once in a while, but the traditional office setting probably provides a little too much of it. Who *wants* to work in a cubicle?

[Seamus McCauley]

Can you still see the TV from the laundry room through the fireplace? From your scribble (sorry, plan) the answer seems to be "maybe", or "so long as no-one is sitting on the fireplace seat".

Also, the shared kids bathroom relies on each kid going into the room, locking both doors for privacy, and then as he leaves considerately unlocking the door to the other kid's bedroom. Can't see them following though on the last stage - give a kid the tools to exclude a sibling from an allegedly shared territory and they will.

[Jean]

Hi
Nice idea for a perfect city, Scott.

For human travelling inside the city limits I would rather go for some sort of robot telecabins on a network of suspended cables all over the houses . Just call for one with your cell phone and program your destination. The cabins can merge on high-speed main cable lines, than speed down at exits to lower speed residential network. The fun is that you have a very nice scenery from there. No more snow removal from the streets (a real problem here in Canada). Streets would be dedicated to biking and skiing, with a special line for robot delivery trucks (silent electric motors) during the night only. Why not?

[That Neil Guy]

I agree with Steven above that you seem to have neglected the folks who build all that crap you're ordering over the internet. What about he folks who make furniture, let alone the guys who'd have to deliver it? Home office is nice and all, but not everybody works in a cubicle.

[Good point. It's not a universal city. It's for cubicle-type employees and various support and service jobs. -- Scott]

[Alicorn]

Haven't read the replies... possible improvement on your delivery robots. Rather than the robot sitting around waiting for you to unload it, why not package your items onto a pallet (or similar) and have a secure area the robot can access (perhaps directly into your elevator) that it can drop off your pallet. Then it can head off and you don't need as many robots. Or live delivery people if robots don't work out :)

[CathyK]

But can we afford such a healthy lifestyle? This study says health increases lifespan which ends up costing more.
http://www.santafenewmexican.com/HealthandScience/Study__Healthy_people_rack_up_more_medical_costs_over_lifetime

[Fletch]

Someone should create a game called "Sim-House"...

[Aardwizz]

Your city plan sounds vaguely familiar. Try Edward Bellamy's "Looking Backwards" (1891) - except that instead of the internet and robots, he had telephones and pneumatic tubes (like bank drive-thrus use), and set in 2000, not 2010+.

The biggest problems with Utopias is that people other than the designer want to live in them. And you know what idiots "people" are....

©¿©¬

[Jake]

Just a thought about the city design, but - building them around Healthcare, and providing free access, won't help that much. Exercise is free and easy now - but people don't do it. Access to a club won't change that.

How do I get to work? Saying I can telecommute doesn't help me if I'm the guy who stacks groceries on robots at the supermarket, and the bikes won't help if my job is on the other side of the city.

I propose - Monorails! Also, skywalks connecting all non-residential buildings.

[Mark Thorson]

I like the concept of
underground tunnels filled
with robots. The robots
would speak a special robot
language, so if you want one
of them to put a coffee with
cream and sugar in the
dumbwaiter, you say to them:

"Kah-fay nwarr con krema ee
sooker pour fah-vore."

And they respond in special
robot language:

"Cee senn yore."

And as you say, they can wait
all day because there's plenty
of them. Just don't keep me
waiting all day, you freakin'
robot.

[david]

So I'm guessing that the money families save by buying their ultimate home, designed to be built as inexpensively as possilbe, will be used to pay the kinds of taxes that will be required to fund this city.

I'm in. As a plus, this community will be years ahead of our regular cities should the O-Zone layer vanish.

[GB]

You've described the housing for the city, but where does all the work take place? You're going to have a power plant and an auto factory in the same unit as the houses? If not, are you suggesting an enclosed bike path all the way out to where they are?

[My Computerized me]

Not bad. What is the room below the fireplace?

The "sitting room" could be the second office for your grand city plan. I would also add the option for a great room upstairs. I have three boys and they need their space to trash. The basement could work for that, but I like a upstairs great room for the extra lighting.

[Mory Buckman]

I was going to mention EPCOT, but someone beat me to it. You ought to check it out.

[spoilsport engineer]

Just so you know, the reason we build roads on the surface is because it's cheaper. It's the same reason we put electric wires on unsightly poles (weather permitting).

[If you picked a flat location, with nothing on it, and trenched instead of tunneled, then covered and reinforced the trenches to form a tunnel, would the cost drop a lot?. It certainly requires a big investment either way. -- Scott]

A proper elevator adds about $100,000 to the cost of a structure.

[If the homes all have the same elevator, the price drops. And you save a bundle on driving. -- Scott]

We don't know how to make robots capable of getting from here to there yet.

[We certainly "know how." It just isn't easy. -- Scott]

And your city will suck totally for anyone too disabled to ride a bike.

[Electric wheelchairs and scooters for them. And elevators everywhere! -- Scott]

Conceptually better, and possibly cheaper is a city built as a single humongous building. A square Borg-cube structure less than a mile wide would house 50,000 inhabitants, plus all the industry and infrastructure of a city. People live on the outer surfaces where there's natural light, and go to work inside. You can walk from anywhere to anywhere 'cause it's only a mile wide. Maybe the best part is that your city would be only a mile away from as much parkland, forest, or scenic beauty as you wanted, since it sits on only 1 square mile of land. Yes, apparently our current engineering practices and materials science are capable of such a structure.

Resistance is futile.

[GLK]

I love bicycling and would be pleased to run a great many more errands/commutes if it wasn't so doggone dangerous/inconvenient. The quaint little city I reside in has traffic lights that take forever-and-a-day to change while your car uselessly idles even when there is no cross-traffic for miles. This, even after they spent tax dollars on under-street sensors to allegedly facilitate traffic flow. Yeah, right. Our current cities are designed to stimulate the economy and keep the status quo in clover by requiring as much energy consumption as possible. A truly efficient city means money and good health for the little guy but in so doing makes other people less rich and/or less powerful. That's why things that make so much sense are such an uphill battle. The rich and powerful never thought of anyone but themselves as changing times caused massive unemployment not to mention the stress and heart disease that came with it. I once saw Greenspan on C-Span say that as jobs go overseas Americans will have to retrain. Simple, right? No matter if you're 45 years old and previously made wages commensurate to raising a family in the style of the American dream. Now you can retrain to live just above the poverty level and retire with squat. That's why Dilbert is popular. It's a comical voice against a type of oppression that most people identify with. So good luck with your city of the future Scott but beware the distorters who will conspire mightily to block sensible living from ever happening. Remember, there's lots more money to be made via re-action than there is in pro-action. Just ask a Louisianan.

[JR]

To have the underground city structure you describe, you'd pretty much have to start a new city. Existing cities have such a network of utilities and foundations that it's hard to dig anything new on the scale you'd need.

Take Chicago, for instance. It has multiple levels of abandoned tunnels underneath. Some of them run under the river, and one was the source of the great Chicago flood about ten years ago. A contractor drove a piling through the tunnel roof and flooded hundreds of office-building basements downtown.

[dilweed]

Nice plug for clubsports.....enjoy your free lifetime membership.

[Annabelle]

but why would you think that everyone wants to be protected always from the weather and other people, colleagues etc?
isn't it a joy to have new experiences every day?

so ideal would be your company, alone all by yourself everyday?

sounds like the work of an egomaniac to me :)

[Sam Davis]

Planned cities like the "ultimate city" you've outlined are in the offing. People have been writing about them for years, including some science fiction writers.

Doubtless they will be privately-developed because if government got involved, none of the innovations you mention would escape Rube Goldberg style catastrophic distortions.

Increasing reliance on voluntary cooperation to meet major human needs, worldwide, is just one more way our archaic, millenia-old government system is becoming increasingly irrelevant. Rational, peaceful human beings don't "need" governments that engage in war and repression and attempt to micromanage their lives. A new system of very limited civil administration will emerge soon, although it still may be called "government," by evolution, as humans worldwide discover that to live happy, fulfilling lives they need to put severe restrictions on institutions that stand in the way of that.

Can you tell I'm a libertarian? This is part wishful thinking but also part reality-based. We either move in that direction or get prepared for another round of Dark Ages.

[jenl1625]

Just don't build it anywhere earthquake-prone . . . . Or be real careful about earthquake-proofing those tunnels.

And I agree about putting the bikes above-ground (with underground options for bad weather), but disagree about putting cars below-ground (just because of the built-up exhaust). Maybe put in a mag-lev that actually works to get people from point A to point B and then restrict cars to only electrics, and put them underground?

Or just have the magic sliding sidewalks, so people don't need cars? I guess you'd need to have an underground version of those, as well, because of weather, unless you want to enclose them in glass . . . . Or force fields.

[HALiverpool]

Many people commented about the noise from the laundry being in the middle of the house. New, quiet appliances and a little sound proofing would take care of that. A couple of laundry chutes and a dumbwaiter would solve the noise issue as well as the dryer venting issue. The dryer venting issue being that most driers are designed to vent only a few feet from the machine. Putting a dryer in the middle of the house means you would have to have a supplemental venting system.

-HAL

[Tracy]

Roomba ROCKS! I for one welcome our iRobot overlords. We got our Roomba about a month ago on a deal on Woot.com We have 5 dogs (4 long haired) and 3 cats (only one by choice, though) and figured it would try for a few days, and then break out and escape, or die trying. But, to our utter amazement, it does a great job. We have it vac the house M-F while we are at work, and on the weekend we do a regular vacuuming. NO DUST in the house anymore!

So Scott - feel free to include Roombas in the Ideal House and be sure to contact iRobot when choosing vendors for your Ultimate City. They build death robots for the military too. Oh, and a gutter-cleaning robot.

Chore robots are awesome... death robots? Well maybe those would help address the crime issues others are mentioning.

RatBert for Police Commissioner.

[jim]

Underground?what could you see while traveling around?all there would be are walls,like being in an endless hallway.what about safety?what protection would there be for people being underground from muggers,etc.?
the cost of lighting up your tunnels would be outrageous and raise our taxes.
you're not really thinking this out,scott

[Mike Scott]

Cool house design, now fit it into a 600 sq. ft. footprint (with no more than two stories) to make it usable in the UK.

[Doug]

Scott,
As a surface dweller, I worry the Morlocks may revolt. Any thoughts on that?

[Katherine]

I'm not sure if you're adding this level of detail, but our house has the kid's toilet and shower separated from the bathroom sink by a door. That way one kid can shower while the other primps. It also means that one doesn't have to brush teeth surrounded by the funk of toilet fumes.

[Boozeheimer]

Dear Scott,
Excellent. Two more things. Pedestrians should also be shifted to the underground to ease the SUV traffic above. Sencondly I would have a robotunloadingandbringgoodsup-robot(I would call it "Vertibot" for vertical) as well.

[Boozeheimer]

Dear Scott,
Excellent. Two more things. Pedestrians should also be shifted to the underground to the SUV traffic above. Sencondly I would have a robotunloadingandbringgoodsup-robot(I would call it "Vertibot" for vertical) as well.

[rick segedi]

Sounds like the middle class and above will live IN the city, the way they do in Europe. Where do the working poor, unemployed and homeless live in this kind of city? Seriously, they will always be with us.

Rick

[Al]

Re your future city: Will my home still have a garage to store my red Barchetta, or will I have to hide it in my uncle's barn?