Coming home to the future.
Home: Technology and design promise to make the house of tomorrow a friendly and helpful place.
| Sun, 12/28/1997 |
| By Karol V. Menzie |
| The Baltimore Sun, Staff Writer |
…But some changes are expected to go beyond technology. Architect Klaus Philipsen is "half-predicting, half-hoping" that society-or at least the part of it driven by the dominant baby boomers, born between 1946 and 1964 -- is on the verge of "a quantum leap from quantity to quality."In their younger years, he said, boomers were primarily interested in amassing goods, showing off their ability to earn higher and higher compensation.They cared about investments and commodities, and when they bought a new house, their only concern was, "How much can we sell this for?"The result was a big market for "tract mansions," remote subdivisions full of 4,000-square-foot dwellings on lots of several acres."But when we get older, there are some other things that matter," Philipsen said.Boomers getting older and more frail won't want to live in a distant suburb where they have to drive long distances for necessities. They won't want to mow a 5-acre lot. And they won't want to be alone in a five-bedroom, five-bathroom house.They'll want to live in communities, Philipsen said, where amenities and necessities are readily available, where people are connected, rather than isolated.As physical needs grow more immediate, people will be more concerned with staying put, rather than with moving-a trend, he said, that's already reflected in dropping mobility rates for the nation as a whole.And as people stay put, they'll be more interested in the quality of their surroundings, rather than the quantity, Philipsen said.It would mean, he said, "that design would start to matter."He sees some evidence of that in the quality and availability of food in grocery stores and specialty markets-things no one paid much attention to five years ago, such as arugula, chipotle peppers and shiitake mushrooms, are readily available. More and more restaurants are concentrating on high-quality, fresh, regional cuisine. And stores like IKEA, the design-conscious giant home furnishings chain based in Sweden, are edging out the shops purveying fake "Colonial" and "Mediterranean" styles.