I heard a radio commercial for some hardware store, I think it was Lowe's, and in the commercial, the lady says "I am going to get a new refrigerator, because stainless steel is never out of fashion!" It got me thinking that in 15 years, when you walk into a house, you'll probably look at a stainless steel refridgerator the same way that we look at puke green ones from the 70s and say "this is SO turn of the century!"
So that being said, what do you guys think are going to be the egg chairs and puke green refidgerators of our time? What is going to make a house built in 2005 look like a hous built in 2005?
Monotone glass mosaic tile bathrooms walls and floors (Bisazza et al.).
Wall mounted toilets.
Any kind of built-in gadget that speaks to an extreme desire for "convenience" over form, my least favorite of which is stove-side pot fillers (what is the point of those friggin things anyway?!)
good question...but i've been too busy listening to minimal techno (is it ever going to be minimal enough?) to actually participate in 2005. sorry, that's not much help.
omg, those generic wooden closet doors that are white with the rectangular grooves in them. u know what i'm talking about? i bet you've all seen one or have one in ur very room. and yeah. they look exactly like all the doors in my house. quite disturbing.
vessel sink is sooo 1990s already, good job on that one, also score on the lucy aeron chair, yikes.
i disagree on the wall-mounted toilets. those haven't really even hit their stride yet in this country... besides which, things that really work well are less subject to whims of fashion...
i say:
• in-ceiling speakers (wait... aren't those already sooo 1980s?! apparently not to one of my clients... same client who wants a trash compactor, what's up 1975)
• dish drawer dishwashers
• refrigerators with freezer drawers below (the aging baby boomers' knees will throw this one out, hopefully)
• incandescent bulbs
• in-wall intercoms (wish that were gone already)
• basically, in-wall anything
yeah wall mounteds rule. Bending over every time you want to put ice cubes in your summer drink, however, does not. Nor does having to take out a bunch of freezing cold items, pile them up on your counter, then return them all just to get at the one below them, bending all the while. Screw that, I'll take my side-by-side any day, where things stay neatly and easily on their shelves.
I find drawer dishwashers a poorly working approximation of a good european multi-mode model. The only benefit is to be able to run only one drawer at a time, and the euro dw's do the same function better (partymode!). Also, MORE BENDING and reaching. What is it with you people?! Good chiropracters, I guess? ;)
ditto on the nurbs.... they're already a bit dead here (SCI-Arc land). You can tell because the really innovative stuff that sparks good discussions and debates have nothing to do with nurbs, whereas the projects that utilize 'nurbs' through the design continuously have repetative and languid discussions with an easily deflated hype.
myriam, ap - I agree, wall-mounted toilets make more sense, easier to clean, like the way they look etc. But right now every single client of mine wants one, and I think they will "say" 2005 pretty strongly - so I guess they won't be equivalent of the avacado green appliance, but WILL date the remodel. Like the lowboy toilets of the mid-80s.
And I agree that the frig on top/freezer below is here to stay too.
Hey Liberty - we're about to do an addition to our house, and we're going with a wall-mounted toilet (even though it's about $1,000 more to install, but hey, can't resist not having to clean that icky bottom of the toilet), AND I was thinking the other day how if we did a new kitchen I would want a pot filler. Here's why - I love pasta - probably cook it almost every day, and to do it properly you need a large pot & lots of water. We don't have a dishwasher (though it's coming soon, thank god), and even when we do I think there will always be dishes in the sink. So, we have a deep large bowl sink, which the pot fits into nicely, but when it's filled with dishes and I'm trying to fill up the pot to cook pasta, it gets heavy, I'm trying to balance it on top of cups while it fills without breaking them - you get the picture. Anyways, it's a folly, but my ideal kitchen would have one (not sure what type exactly you're talking about, but I'd go for one coming right out of the wall behind the range, not the free-standing ones that stick up in a loop and look like something scientific...though I do wish I could convince someone to use labtop for their kitchen - I digress)
Hate bottom freezers too - I don't understand why anyone would want one, and now they also make a lot of fridges with the water dispenser inside, at the corner where the hinge is. Crazy idea - you have to use both hands to fill the cup. Who wants to do that in the middle of the night?
I shouldn't have listed the dang wall-mounted toilet, I LIKE them I do, I just am shocked at how they are the must-have item for residential bathrooms right now!! Thank god people are giving up on whirlpool tubs. Instead they're asking for the Sok.
What I don't get about the pot filler is this: you still have to lug the heavy pot of water plus pasta across the kitchen to drain it. The pot filler to me is an incomplete solution unless you also have a siphon hose next to the stove, and a colander built into the pot, and then you can drain the pasta pot without having to pick it up.
Point taken about the balancing act over glasses in the sink, though - that isn't *quite* as much of an issue when draining. This is more a pet peeve of mine than anything. And I understand if you're doing Asian wok cooking it's nice to have a water source right there to add water to the wok for quick steaming as you cook.
I've now written far too many words about pot fillers than my schedule allows!!!!
I had laptop counters in my kitchen in Philly...sigh, I miss it. Fab material.
I'm surprised at your clients, we have to spend HOURS convincing ours to accept wall-hungs. THEN months later they rescind the choice during cost-cutting (false economy... argh), despite our protests. We also have to talk the contractor into installing them without charging--no joke--and extra $1400 LUXURY TAX (they are actually EASIER to install then floor toilets, what gives for the extra cost?! Retarded.) Where do you live?
and j, I agree with everything on your list other than brazillian steakhouses...they aren't goin' anywhere...not until the world is filled with vegans and vegetarians...
I don't think nalgene bottles will be temporary. Maybe you just don't know enough about their background nor benefits and are assuming that the bottle type is only a 'fad'. The company has been an extremely strong mainstay as suppliers of instruments and tools for laboratories around the world for so many years... it's like the McMaster Carr for labs across the U.S. Furthermore, when the majority of people eventually learn that soft-plastic water bottles are highly suseptable to bacteria growth and are not good for re-filling, hard resin bottles, such as those by Nalgene, will likewise become a mainstay of the public.
Seriously, some of the suggestions on this thread need some social research first.
that and the bottles are extremely difficult to destruct under most circumstances (trust me, thousands of college students have tried this for years)... therefore as the public grows more inclined into environmental issues and reduces waste, conserving and re-using materials... "nalgene" type bottles will last.
then what are your enlightened suggestions?
prendrefeu do you work for nalgene or just want to live in colorado?
and my suggestions, may they hopefully be anti-social...
12 packs of foil wrapped gum
breath mints that dissolve instantly
brad pitt and whoever-the-hell it is at the moment
the return of the 80's, may they rest in peace (again)
the war on terror and yellow ribbon bumber stickers
people still quoting seinfeld episodes
michael moore
vote for pedro
I wasn't saying that Nalgene bottles will become dated because of their benefits, or lack there of. What I think will become dated is how they are so trendy now. You cannot drive past a college campus without seeing 100 of them hanging from backpacks. Like the ipod, the nalgene bottle is trendy and everyone is trying to duplicate it. Once lexan plastic bottles fully flood the market I expect you'll see far fewer because there won't be any stylish reason for them. Seriously, who needs a quart of water with them everywhere they go? It's a fad, not going to change my mind on that one.
Liberty - great idea on the siphon hose and built-in colander... maybe you can get your husband to weld up a prototype? I'll test it :-)
myriam - we do design-build, and the plumbers charge us an extra $500 or so for installation, despite our arguments... we actually installed one ourselves on a job, and it was a pain in the ass to attach it to the drain, because the hole on the toilet wasn't perfectly formed and it took a while to get the right suction. Then the toilet itself costs maybe $400 more, depending on which kind. But anyways, people just generally don't want to do something different than what they do all the time, and if it's different, they'll charge a premium - the reason being that the subs will probably have an assistant installing the toilets - someone who doesn't read drawings, instructions, maybe isn't that sharp. so anything requiring special instruction is likely to cost him more $, time, and potential headaches when it's not installed properly.
We have the same problem now with tankless water heaters - we're putting them into almost all our projects now, so hopefully the installation cost will come down, but it's about $1,000 more than a standard water heater (then the thing itself is another $1,000-$1,500 more as well...).
RA - what do you hear about those tankless water heaters? Every plumbing sub I've talked to says they are crap, but I really like the idea and efficiency of them. Just don't know anyone with one quite yet.
"Vote For Pedro" will definately be on "I love the OO's" someday!
I think when someone makes "That 2000's show" the entire interior of the house will be stark white with details in stainless steel and/or black lamenent veneer (melanine?) and exposed, finished hard wood structure. And everyone will be wearing thick black rimmed glasses, wearing a white dress shirt and tie, and bitching about politics and corperations.
A - The projects are actually all in construction (4 of them, plus ours, which will start soon). I'll post when I have comments from the clients, but our plumber who is pretty good says they work fine and has no problem putting them in.
One contractor on a project we designed but are not building recommended against using them because it is a large house (3,000 sq.ft.), and there is a time lag in the hot water getting to the fixtures (like with a standard water heater), as opposed to the instantaneous hot water you get with a continously circulating system. We looked into installing several heaters so they would be closer to the fixtures, but it turns out that you loose efficiency when you add multiple units (according to the energy calcs), so we decided to go with re-circulating on that project (though we're still putting in a tankless at the pool house).
However, when replacing an existing water heater with one tanklesss, you get a huge credit on the energy calcs. That's part of the reason we've been specifying them (allows us to have more glass), and the clients like that they take up less space. We're putting one in our house because of efficiency, but also so we can move our fridge to where we currently have the water heater (the new tankless will be outside on a wall).
RA--The good thing about the wall-hungs though is that they don't require any joist-heading to get your toilet exactly where you want it to go. Also, the carrier is really easy to plunk in the wall and bolt down (only requires 10 mins of thought on the framers' part...even though sometimes apparently that's too much...)--haven't come across the problem you've described though and i hope i never will, doesn't sound fun.
libertybelle-- ahh! Lab counters are very cool. They are, however, made of soapstone; the fireslate is a contractor's cheap imitation, unfortunately. I know it looks good but it stains like crazy.
hmm, I've been told soapstone by a few contractor sources. Guess I could look it up. Possibly depends on where you are/what the budget is? I did have a short hospital lab-room detailling job but alas my memory fails me in that case...
That is SOOO y2k...
I heard a radio commercial for some hardware store, I think it was Lowe's, and in the commercial, the lady says "I am going to get a new refrigerator, because stainless steel is never out of fashion!" It got me thinking that in 15 years, when you walk into a house, you'll probably look at a stainless steel refridgerator the same way that we look at puke green ones from the 70s and say "this is SO turn of the century!"
So that being said, what do you guys think are going to be the egg chairs and puke green refidgerators of our time? What is going to make a house built in 2005 look like a hous built in 2005?
I can only speak for residential work:
Monotone glass mosaic tile bathrooms walls and floors (Bisazza et al.).
Wall mounted toilets.
Any kind of built-in gadget that speaks to an extreme desire for "convenience" over form, my least favorite of which is stove-side pot fillers (what is the point of those friggin things anyway?!)
good question...but i've been too busy listening to minimal techno (is it ever going to be minimal enough?) to actually participate in 2005. sorry, that's not much help.
Wow, AP, we have those chairs in our office, and now that I'm looking at it, I can tell that in 15 years, I will absolutely hate them! Good job
omg, those generic wooden closet doors that are white with the rectangular grooves in them. u know what i'm talking about? i bet you've all seen one or have one in ur very room. and yeah. they look exactly like all the doors in my house. quite disturbing.
ANYTHING tuscan
niches above fireplaces for plasma tv's
cat5 ethernet outlets
30 foot ceilings in "great rooms"
"great rooms"
IPOD
pendant light with blue glass diffuser
above counter vessel sink
- I would add any blown glass diffuser to the pendant light, especially the stuff that looks like drippy glass tie-dye
- backlit acid-etched (frosted) glass
- anything made by stacking laser cut or milled sections
titanium-covered buildings
sinks that llok like bold bowls
vessel sink is sooo 1990s already, good job on that one, also score on the lucy aeron chair, yikes.
i disagree on the wall-mounted toilets. those haven't really even hit their stride yet in this country... besides which, things that really work well are less subject to whims of fashion...
i say:
• in-ceiling speakers (wait... aren't those already sooo 1980s?! apparently not to one of my clients... same client who wants a trash compactor, what's up 1975)
• dish drawer dishwashers
• refrigerators with freezer drawers below (the aging baby boomers' knees will throw this one out, hopefully)
• incandescent bulbs
• in-wall intercoms (wish that were gone already)
• basically, in-wall anything
• beige living rooms and red dining rooms
• "distressed country" style... kind of 1990s already
wall mounted toilets are fine...they can stay. easier cleaning.
as for the refrigerator with freezer drawers below, those are gonna stay too...they came back 'cause they make more sense. sorry.
drawer dishwashers make a lot of sense too. if some company made an economical model they'd be great for small apartments.
yeah wall mounteds rule. Bending over every time you want to put ice cubes in your summer drink, however, does not. Nor does having to take out a bunch of freezing cold items, pile them up on your counter, then return them all just to get at the one below them, bending all the while. Screw that, I'll take my side-by-side any day, where things stay neatly and easily on their shelves.
I find drawer dishwashers a poorly working approximation of a good european multi-mode model. The only benefit is to be able to run only one drawer at a time, and the euro dw's do the same function better (partymode!). Also, MORE BENDING and reaching. What is it with you people?! Good chiropracters, I guess? ;)
IKEA furniture....need I say more?
• SUVs
HA! awesome...
how 'bout gas?
"fossil fuels are so 20th century..."
Nurbs
ditto on the nurbs.... they're already a bit dead here (SCI-Arc land). You can tell because the really innovative stuff that sparks good discussions and debates have nothing to do with nurbs, whereas the projects that utilize 'nurbs' through the design continuously have repetative and languid discussions with an easily deflated hype.
"lofts"
bright colors
wine cellars
"professional" stainless steel appliances (Wolf, Viking, etc.)
I know a lot of folks are gonna get mad about this but here we go:
DJ ARCHI_tekt
and the icing on the cake....
Thank you!, thank you very much!
Tumi? no way.
Interior Designers!.....oh I hope, I hope, I hope.....
myriam, ap - I agree, wall-mounted toilets make more sense, easier to clean, like the way they look etc. But right now every single client of mine wants one, and I think they will "say" 2005 pretty strongly - so I guess they won't be equivalent of the avacado green appliance, but WILL date the remodel. Like the lowboy toilets of the mid-80s.
And I agree that the frig on top/freezer below is here to stay too.
I just wish the damn pot fillers would go away.
pubs and bars with lime green and purple walls. although they probably wont make 15 yrs.
anything orange, including mobilephone compaines, guitar amps(good amps, they will just change the colour) and the dutch.
internet fridges.
petrol fuelled cars.
i dissagree A. i predict ikea will merge with googlesoft. and the whole world will cataloged, flatpacked and completely full of bugs.
blobitecture.
Stained wood window frames (interior)
Hardi-panel skins w/exposed fasteners
Giant solar panels
POLYGAL - arggghhhh
Hey Liberty - we're about to do an addition to our house, and we're going with a wall-mounted toilet (even though it's about $1,000 more to install, but hey, can't resist not having to clean that icky bottom of the toilet), AND I was thinking the other day how if we did a new kitchen I would want a pot filler. Here's why - I love pasta - probably cook it almost every day, and to do it properly you need a large pot & lots of water. We don't have a dishwasher (though it's coming soon, thank god), and even when we do I think there will always be dishes in the sink. So, we have a deep large bowl sink, which the pot fits into nicely, but when it's filled with dishes and I'm trying to fill up the pot to cook pasta, it gets heavy, I'm trying to balance it on top of cups while it fills without breaking them - you get the picture. Anyways, it's a folly, but my ideal kitchen would have one (not sure what type exactly you're talking about, but I'd go for one coming right out of the wall behind the range, not the free-standing ones that stick up in a loop and look like something scientific...though I do wish I could convince someone to use labtop for their kitchen - I digress)
Hate bottom freezers too - I don't understand why anyone would want one, and now they also make a lot of fridges with the water dispenser inside, at the corner where the hinge is. Crazy idea - you have to use both hands to fill the cup. Who wants to do that in the middle of the night?
• granite countertops (I can only dream...)
I shouldn't have listed the dang wall-mounted toilet, I LIKE them I do, I just am shocked at how they are the must-have item for residential bathrooms right now!! Thank god people are giving up on whirlpool tubs. Instead they're asking for the Sok.
What I don't get about the pot filler is this: you still have to lug the heavy pot of water plus pasta across the kitchen to drain it. The pot filler to me is an incomplete solution unless you also have a siphon hose next to the stove, and a colander built into the pot, and then you can drain the pasta pot without having to pick it up.
Point taken about the balancing act over glasses in the sink, though - that isn't *quite* as much of an issue when draining. This is more a pet peeve of mine than anything. And I understand if you're doing Asian wok cooking it's nice to have a water source right there to add water to the wok for quick steaming as you cook.
I've now written far too many words about pot fillers than my schedule allows!!!!
I had laptop counters in my kitchen in Philly...sigh, I miss it. Fab material.
laptop counters? what is that?
I'm surprised at your clients, we have to spend HOURS convincing ours to accept wall-hungs. THEN months later they rescind the choice during cost-cutting (false economy... argh), despite our protests. We also have to talk the contractor into installing them without charging--no joke--and extra $1400 LUXURY TAX (they are actually EASIER to install then floor toilets, what gives for the extra cost?! Retarded.) Where do you live?
LAB top, with a B, so sorry....aka Fireslate. It's gorgeous.
Indianapolis: smart people with money and good taste. At least, there's a few of them here...
besides you and vado? really?
j/k
and j, I agree with everything on your list other than brazillian steakhouses...they aren't goin' anywhere...not until the world is filled with vegans and vegetarians...
Both vado and I have mega-smarts and great taste but no money, we're architects fer chrissakes!
But there really is a surprising amount of wealth in this town.
Spinner Wheels
Nalgene Bottles
Sugared down sorority drinks
I don't think nalgene bottles will be temporary. Maybe you just don't know enough about their background nor benefits and are assuming that the bottle type is only a 'fad'. The company has been an extremely strong mainstay as suppliers of instruments and tools for laboratories around the world for so many years... it's like the McMaster Carr for labs across the U.S. Furthermore, when the majority of people eventually learn that soft-plastic water bottles are highly suseptable to bacteria growth and are not good for re-filling, hard resin bottles, such as those by Nalgene, will likewise become a mainstay of the public.
Seriously, some of the suggestions on this thread need some social research first.
that and the bottles are extremely difficult to destruct under most circumstances (trust me, thousands of college students have tried this for years)... therefore as the public grows more inclined into environmental issues and reduces waste, conserving and re-using materials... "nalgene" type bottles will last.
then what are your enlightened suggestions?
prendrefeu do you work for nalgene or just want to live in colorado?
and my suggestions, may they hopefully be anti-social...
12 packs of foil wrapped gum
breath mints that dissolve instantly
brad pitt and whoever-the-hell it is at the moment
the return of the 80's, may they rest in peace (again)
the war on terror and yellow ribbon bumber stickers
people still quoting seinfeld episodes
michael moore
vote for pedro
I wasn't saying that Nalgene bottles will become dated because of their benefits, or lack there of. What I think will become dated is how they are so trendy now. You cannot drive past a college campus without seeing 100 of them hanging from backpacks. Like the ipod, the nalgene bottle is trendy and everyone is trying to duplicate it. Once lexan plastic bottles fully flood the market I expect you'll see far fewer because there won't be any stylish reason for them. Seriously, who needs a quart of water with them everywhere they go? It's a fad, not going to change my mind on that one.
64 oz a day. timeless.
Liberty - great idea on the siphon hose and built-in colander... maybe you can get your husband to weld up a prototype? I'll test it :-)
myriam - we do design-build, and the plumbers charge us an extra $500 or so for installation, despite our arguments... we actually installed one ourselves on a job, and it was a pain in the ass to attach it to the drain, because the hole on the toilet wasn't perfectly formed and it took a while to get the right suction. Then the toilet itself costs maybe $400 more, depending on which kind. But anyways, people just generally don't want to do something different than what they do all the time, and if it's different, they'll charge a premium - the reason being that the subs will probably have an assistant installing the toilets - someone who doesn't read drawings, instructions, maybe isn't that sharp. so anything requiring special instruction is likely to cost him more $, time, and potential headaches when it's not installed properly.
We have the same problem now with tankless water heaters - we're putting them into almost all our projects now, so hopefully the installation cost will come down, but it's about $1,000 more than a standard water heater (then the thing itself is another $1,000-$1,500 more as well...).
RA - what do you hear about those tankless water heaters? Every plumbing sub I've talked to says they are crap, but I really like the idea and efficiency of them. Just don't know anyone with one quite yet.
"Vote For Pedro" will definately be on "I love the OO's" someday!
I think when someone makes "That 2000's show" the entire interior of the house will be stark white with details in stainless steel and/or black lamenent veneer (melanine?) and exposed, finished hard wood structure. And everyone will be wearing thick black rimmed glasses, wearing a white dress shirt and tie, and bitching about politics and corperations.
Oh, and that reminds me, starbucks, definatly.
A - The projects are actually all in construction (4 of them, plus ours, which will start soon). I'll post when I have comments from the clients, but our plumber who is pretty good says they work fine and has no problem putting them in.
One contractor on a project we designed but are not building recommended against using them because it is a large house (3,000 sq.ft.), and there is a time lag in the hot water getting to the fixtures (like with a standard water heater), as opposed to the instantaneous hot water you get with a continously circulating system. We looked into installing several heaters so they would be closer to the fixtures, but it turns out that you loose efficiency when you add multiple units (according to the energy calcs), so we decided to go with re-circulating on that project (though we're still putting in a tankless at the pool house).
However, when replacing an existing water heater with one tanklesss, you get a huge credit on the energy calcs. That's part of the reason we've been specifying them (allows us to have more glass), and the clients like that they take up less space. We're putting one in our house because of efficiency, but also so we can move our fridge to where we currently have the water heater (the new tankless will be outside on a wall).
RA--The good thing about the wall-hungs though is that they don't require any joist-heading to get your toilet exactly where you want it to go. Also, the carrier is really easy to plunk in the wall and bolt down (only requires 10 mins of thought on the framers' part...even though sometimes apparently that's too much...)--haven't come across the problem you've described though and i hope i never will, doesn't sound fun.
The tankless water heaters are pretty rad.
libertybelle-- ahh! Lab counters are very cool. They are, however, made of soapstone; the fireslate is a contractor's cheap imitation, unfortunately. I know it looks good but it stains like crazy.
aren't lab countertops epoxy resin? At least that's what the science casework people always called them.
hmm, I've been told soapstone by a few contractor sources. Guess I could look it up. Possibly depends on where you are/what the budget is? I did have a short hospital lab-room detailling job but alas my memory fails me in that case...
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