The Home of Tomorrow:
The Good Health Home

Tomorrow's homes will have a number of elements not found in today's homes. These elements will include three new kinds of rooms. The first will be a special communications/computer/entertainment facility, the mu room. The second will be the pool room, a small room with an indoor lap pool, an expansive pool. The third will be a hydroponic and soil-based plant production facility called the greenwing.

The mu room is the room where the residents of tomorrow's homes will spend a large portion of their work hours, their education hours, and their entertainment hours. The mu room will be equipped with telereader chaises, comfortable ergonomic chairs equipped with telereader terminals, special human/computer interfaces that facilitate communication between humans and computers and between humans and other humans through computers (see "The Telereader: Tomorrow's Interactive Television Terminal,"). Ordinarily there will be one telereader for each person in the home. Most mu rooms will also include a large high-definition digital TV display. The HDTV will divide and will be shared by the mu room and the pool room. Because they are small and low in cost, most homes will have several telereaders, but, because they are large and relatively expensive, only one HDTV.

The mu room will be the transporter room of tomorrow. Instead of having their bodies transported, however, àla Star Trek, the mu roomers will simply extend their eyes and ears, and their voices and images, to nearby or distant locations. Through the mu room's telereader terminals users will be able to inspect their home, their yard, and their immediate environs. Users will be able to visit the office or the library. Users will be able to meet with friends or relatives, wherever they might be. Users will be able to commune with the great minds of the world. Users will be transported into other environments, real or imaginary, they might wish to visit; for example, users might be transported to exotic environments on our planet, into the microcosmic world, or into imaginary places or worlds created or envisioned by others.

In addition to its other functions, the mu room will be the observation and control center of the home. Selected interior and exterior areas of the home will be equipped with low-cost video cameras, microphones, gas detectors (e.g., smoke, methane, CO, radon, hydrogen, etc.), and other monitoring devices. Images, sounds, and signals from any or all or these devices can be displayed simultaneously in small (or large) windows on the HDTV display or the telereaders. Any of the home's components that are electrically or electronically operated can be controlled from the mu room through the home's computer system (see "Tomorrow's Household Mainframe ").

In the future, the home's mu room will largely replace the classroom. Most of the kind of learning that occurs in today's classrooms will take place in mu rooms. Through the use of telereaders and interactive movable type, most children will be reading by the age of five or six. For these children, schools will play a different role. Today, the home is expected to supplement and support the learning that takes place in classrooms. In tomorrow's world, classrooms will be used to supplement and expand the learning that occurs in the home. When the home becomes the principal deliverer of education, the nature and role of the school will change dramatically and the costs of operating our public school systems may be substantially reduced - at least for teaching such things as reading, writing, mathematics, and how to use computers.

For more information about the mu room and its components and capabilities see the following monographs "Tomorrow's Household Mainframe," "A Walk Through the Woods with a Telereader," and "Mudoc Corporation's New Tools for Learning, Reading, Working," Also see The Metafarm plan (particularly descriptions of the metafarmhouse), The Mu Primer manuscript, and The Mudoc Technology, the Mudoc Corporation's business plan.

The pool room will be a walled-off extension of the mu room. The pool room will house an expansive pool, so-called because the laps can be any length the swimmer desires. An expansive pool is an 8´x16´ (or larger) pool with a support and suspension system that allows individuals to swim freely in any position and that supports swimmers regardless of their physical limitations or disabilities.

At one end of the pool will be a hydrotherapy section. The hydrotherapy section will include (1) a hinged, adjustable, elevatable, and retractable massage table, (2) a variety of heating, cooling, manipulating, and massage tools (all water-powered), and (3) hinged and adjustable seats or benches. To fend off waves generated by a swimmer, hinged baffles on the pool's sides can be extended to separate the hydrotherapy section from the swimming section.

At the other end of the pool room there will be a large safety-plate-glass window (in the wall that separates the pool room from the mu room). A swimmer in the pool will swim toward the window and anyone seated in the hydrotherapy section will face the window. The mu room's HDTV will be supported by a heavy duty piano hinge that will permit the display to be turned to face the pool, from which the display can be seen through the window. When the pool room is in use, the HDTV display will usually be turned to face the pool. At other times, it will face the mu room. (See the expansive pool layout in "Tomorrow's Home Pool.")

Most of the things that are done in the mu room can and will be done in the pool room - but in somewhat different ways. Most of the television or computer video output that is consumed in the pool room will be viewed on the HDTV display instead of on telereader displays. Human/computer interaction in the pool room will tend to involve vocal exchanges to a greater extent than in the mu room. Pool room users will give voice commands (or, in the more sophisticated systems, dictation) to the household's mainframe computer. The computer will execute the commands, with the results of the executions provided through the HDTV display and its speakers (and/or the user's audio earplugs).

In addition to the things they might use it for in the mu room, pool room occupants will use the household mainframe system to assist them in their pool room activities. For example, a swimmer may wish to have presented a self-programmed set of swimming routines to be followed during the swim. Or an exercise routine can be presented. Or massage therapy techniques can be demonstrated. Or a swimmer may wish to see what is happening in a nursery room, yard, or other part of the home or surroundings. Or the pool room occupant may simply wish to have entertainment or instructional programming provided through the HDTV. (See "Tomorrow's Household Mainframe.")

The greenwing is another element that will be commonplace in tomorrow's homes. The greenwing will be a greenhouse appended to the home, usually adjoining the pool room. In the greenwing, hydroponic and soil-based vegetables, fruits, herbs, flowers, tree seedlings, and other plants will be grown using tomorrow's scientific horticultural methods and tools. Some of the greenwing's products will be harvested and consumed. Others will be transplanted to the garden or elsewhere. (A garden will usually adjoin the greenwing.) The primary purpose of the greenwing is to provide foods that are low in cost but, at the same time, fresher, higher in nutritional values, lower in pesticides and other contaminants, and more readily available than foods from markets or other commercial sources. In most of tomorrow's homes, a major portion of the foods consumed will be produced "in-house." And, in America at least, "the processed food generation" will be succeeded by "the fresh fruit and vegetable generation."

As time goes on, more and more homes will become energy independent. Solar energy, wind power, flowing water, and other natural power sources at or near the homesite will play an increasingly important role in tomorrow's homes. Eventually, most homes will collect some of nature's energy and will store it in various forms. One form may be as electrical power stored in batteries. Another may be as heated water. However, the primary use of the energy we collect at our homesites will probably be to convert water to hydrogen and oxygen for use in our furnaces and appliances - and for use in the fuel cells that will be used in our homes and in our cars and other vehicles. Hydrogen burned in an oxygen environment produces only steam and heat - and no pollutants whatsoever. Hydrogen-fuel used in other ways produces very few pollutants. Home-produced hydrogen is likely to become the principal fuel used in tomorrow's homes, particularly those in rural and remote locations. In urban areas, commercially-produced hydrogen may come to be delivered to homes and to industrial facilities through pipes similar to those that now distribute natural gas.

Floor plan of 3 new rooms