[thechat] Your dream house: what tech stuff?

[Martin Burns]

On 21 Oct 2006, at 14:33, Elfur Logadóttir wrote:

> As it happens my family will be building 4 homes in the coming  
> three years
> and with that comes the possibility to install as much equipment as  
> needed
> (or wanted :).
> We can mount things in the walls - lay cables and whatever we can  
> dream up
> ... and here's the problem
>
> We don't quite know what to dream of.
>
> all of these are gonna be built from scratch :) and therefore all  
> but the
> penthouse apartment is fully controlable from the local-loop and  
> onwards.
>
> So, if it were your home, what would you plan for?
> LAN? WLAN? both?
> tv/music/lights centrally controlled or ?

oooh now you're talking my current fave subject as we're starting to  
think about such stuff. Starting to make jottings at
http://wiki.easyweb.co.uk

The thing is: don't hard-code it. Make it flexible, and adaptable.  
Run conduit that leaves space for *lots* of cabling, even if you're  
going to run WiFi for most applications. Oh, and leave string in the  
conduit... you'll thank me later.

And yes, I *do* have an extended rant on this in my back pocket.

Also, read Don Norman's The Design of Everyday Things - all about  
usability of *objects* in the real world, including a whole chunk on  
buildings.

I don't know what kind of heating systems you get in .is cos of all  
that neato geothermal, but we're looking really closely at the Passiv  
Haus standard - no active heating required.


Cheers
Martin
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