1950s Smart Homes and the Longevity of Design

https://resobscura.blogspot.com/2019/12/1950s-smart-homes-and-longevity-of.html

by benbreen • 7 years ago

78 35 7 years ago

resobscura.blogspot.com

de_Selby• 7 years ago

Better to just watch the video than blogspam that just extracts still images from it and adds "insightful" commentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyrTgtPTz3M

Arbalest• 7 years ago

Despite it being old and somewhat irrelevant now, I just can't watch an advert for that long.

bb123• 7 years ago

That seems like a loss for you more than Westinghouse. They don't even exist anymore.

ocdtrekkie• 7 years ago

I actually love a good "future vision" ad. They're often pretty inspiring. One of my favorites is Corning's "A Day Made of Glass": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Cf7IL_eZ38

netsharc• 7 years ago

The contents of the blog post and video are different things, the blog post isn't just reiterating the video, but talks about how the technology looks outdated but the design of the home still looks timeless (at least in the author's opinion).

mettamage• 7 years ago

I didn't watch the video. I just wanted to mention to people the Bauhaus movement [1]. We still have furniture that's quite similar to it [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bauhaus

[2] https://www.dezeen.com/2018/11/08/bauhaus-furniture-designs-...

bproven2• 7 years ago

Also watches: https://www.junghans.de/en/bauhaus.html

thomasfl2• 7 years ago

In the future, architecture might just as well look like old italian villages or a french chataux. It is about human taste and fashion. Not technical innovations.

CalRobert2• 7 years ago

One thing that's a bit different is it's relatively uncommon, in the wealthy world at least, for people to design and build their own home now, as opposed the vernacular (self-built) architecture of centuries past.

I'm a bit grumbly but it's frustrating to see planning boards make decisions about what fits local architectural character, as though we decided to stop changing what we liked when we started introducing planning requirements.

thomasfl2• 7 years ago

Good point. Planners are not the most innovative designers. Seems western cities will be stuck with dull bauhaus inspired, minimalistic and cubic design forever.

systemtest• 7 years ago

This is a big problem in The Netherlands. I want to buy a plot of land to build a home but it's always attached with a huge list of requirements. The home needs to be between A and B cubic meters, ridge height C, gutter height D, roof angle E, front needs to face the street, house needs to be perpendicular to the street, brick needs to be color F, needs to have parking for two cars, heating through system G.

I'm a big fan of prefab sustainable homes, the wooden flat-roofed bungalow ones that you can plop down from a factory in about two days. But those homes never meet the requirement list.

kalleboo• 7 years ago

Although technical innovations can enable design. If our future ends up where we spend most of our day in VR, I'd want my garden to look like my grade school Trapper Keeper https://i.pinimg.com/originals/35/4c/c3/354cc33523812bd516c1...

overcast• 7 years ago

Like always, what's old becomes new again.

classified• 7 years ago

I just cannot resist quoting Yogi Berra here: The future ain’t what it used to be.

madengr• 7 years ago

There is an “All Electric Home” preserved in the county museum where I live. The most interesting thing is the large, hidden relay panel used to control everything, with a mess of low voltage wiring run throughout the house.

https://www.jocogov.org/facility/the-1950s-all-electric-hous...

Of course thus would be powered by nuclear energy.

bynkman• 7 years ago

Ha! I was just thinking of the house in the JoCo Museum. (I live in the KC metro too.)

jedimastert• 7 years ago

I'm not quite sure why, but I love relay logic. I think it's because it's kind of a manifestation of the underlying logic in a very physical way. Like, we use switches as an analogy for transistor, and they're literally switches.

I don't know why, I just love them to bits.

frosted-flakes2• 7 years ago

You're link won't load, but my house is wired like that. It doesn't have any "smart" features, but each light switch is a momentary-contact toggle switch connected to a relay in a big panel in the basement. The system is made by General Electric and is still sold today (mostly for commercial applications).

However, the low voltage wiring is very neatly done, and it still functions perfectly. Since low voltage wiring is so small, it means a bank of nine switches can easily fit in a single gang box (in the form of a 9-position dial and a single switch). Also, some lights are controlled by as many as five switches, since it's so easy to daisy-chain another switch, and I love that I can shut off the detached garage lights from inside the house.

The main disadvantage is that it's difficult to add dimmers to lights, since the line voltage isn't in the switch box.

This relay-driven system just screams to be hooked up to a computer system to add "smart home" features, and I actually started doing that. I got a prototype working with a Raspberry Pi and some home-made circuit boards to the point where I could ask Siri to turn on any light in the house, but I'm no electrical engineer, and before long my boards started to fail.

politekc• 7 years ago

Have you documented this journey anywhere? Would love to follow along.

Retric2• 7 years ago

What’s really interesting to me is the shortest version of Poulaine shoes around 1 to 2 inches is actually functional as it prevents stubbing your toes. Making many modern styles slightly less functional. Enduring design elements often have these subtle benefits which are easy to gloss over when they become exaggerated due to fashion.

You even get zombie designs with modern architecture keeping various elements that where designed for airflow pre AC in homes that are kept sealed for efficiency.

dsalzman• 7 years ago

I love the fireplace / indoor grill combo. That’s timeless

tabtab• 7 years ago

Isn't that what a "pipe stove" is? It's centuries old if I'm not mistaken. Basically your fireplace is a big rectangular box with a metal pipe to carry the smoke out of the house. You put the food to cook on top of the box.

bproven2• 7 years ago

Personally I enjoy all of the analog dials. For some reason they really look neat, classy and appealing.

itronitron• 7 years ago

> in the end they settled on something oddly traditional: Louis XVI furniture

so glad 2001 was made before Mariott Residence Inns were a thing, I can stand a week in one but would go insane if that was my zoo cage

newmac• 7 years ago

I'm currently building a brand new house and we've opted to forego most of the current home automation solutions. While they may have ushered in many of the promises of the past, they are locked in and difficult to service. Instead we are installing standard z-wave controllable switches/dimmers and standard programmable locks/thermostats, etc.

In the end if we really want automation we can use HomeKit or Alexa, although inviting Amazon/Alexa in to our home is a bit contentious.

open-source-ux• 7 years ago

What is it about certain designs that give them a 'modern' look despite the passage of time? Do sharp, angular lines always suggest a 'modern' or 'contemporary' aesthetic? What makes a design feel dated or old?

Here is a teapot design. Modern-looking? (Some of you may recognise it.) Can you guess when it was made?

https://media.vam.ac.uk/media/thira/collection_images/2006AB...

Here's who designed it and when:

https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O78328/teapot-dresser-chr...

Some more designs by the same designer:

https://www.liveauctioneers.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2015...

1950s Smart Homes and the Longevity of Design

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