During the Greenbuild Conference and Exhibition, the Greenbuild KB Home ProjeKt drew hundreds of visitors. The house, a true representation of the future of sustainability for volume building, was a draw because of its forward thinking and its realistic concepts.

After attendees were led through the home that was engineered to comply with California’s anticipated 2020 net zero energy requirements, they were asked to draw on their imagination and their experience in the home, to look toward the future. They were asked to think about what homes would be like in 2050.

Diane Bleck, author and founder of The Doodle Institute, then captured their ideas and translated them into drawings. Through these drawings, we can imagine where products will be trending and what will impact and influence housing providers in the future.

First, attendees were asked to think about features that will be part of housing in 2050. The focus was on customization, but not customization as we know it today. Customization of the future is instantaneous, with features that would move walls, change paint colors with the touch of a hand, create virtual weather, and know what you want and how you want it by gathering and using data.

Comfort was and will continue to be a focus. Not just comfort from a physical standpoint, but comfort from spending more time with family, even extending to multiple generations who live in the same home. Beyond that level of comfort is the comfort of routine, automated home maintenance: Attendees envisioned a home that performs all of its maintenance itself, leaving the owner to enjoy a worry-free experience.

Other features draw on sustainability, like a house that rotates toward the sun depending on the time of day so it can leverage the best sunlight hours and the ability to plant and harvest with micro-gardens indoors. The home of the future will not endanger its owners with any toxins and, along with using the environment to become more energy efficient, it will have advanced technologies as well.

The Greenbuild KB Home ProjeKt brought many technologies and new thoughts to what has been known for a long time as a static product. But, with the ways that new technologies are becoming an integral part of the home, it can and will start acting more like “one of the family,” interacting with you and knowing what to do next. When attendees were asked to think about this, they created a home with a personality that can be described as helpful, supportive, and slightly subservient.

They envision the house will do things, even in their absence. This image shows the home selecting the meal for the evening, monitoring the temperature, creating an energy report, watering the lawn, ordering groceries, and receiving packages.

But what about the sustainability? How will it merge with the all-encompassing use of technology? And how will it be present in the home? The merger could create a new word: “sustechnology,” and this combination would marry better products and peace of mind.

The attendees saw not only less energy use but less waste and even waste that will break down organically. Plus, recycling that can be used to create something new.

Many of these future concepts were able to draw from the 2020 home, which speaks to the homeowner with usefulness in its forms of livability, performance, and features that adapt to needs in real time and over time.

Register to take a virtual tour of the home now and experience the future.