#onceacar

This past week I have been designing houses that have their space and services separated. It's a great way to explore better use of space and improving the integration of services. One of the greatest opportunities for improving the build process is to minimise site installation. It has over the years evolved into a tortuous process. Just run through the sequence of operations that go to make a shower in a traditional house. Plumbers and tilers taking turns in messing up each others work using a mish mash of components invariably ending in the mediocre.

In the past I have used the comparison with a car to explore how architecture has been left behind. I still can't go in to Jewsons and buy central locking for my house and revisiting this now that solar power is entering both homes and cars is poignant. I appreciate it is early days with hybrid houses but fixing a square PV panel over the tiles on a roof is like BMW chucking a battery in the back seat of a 5 series to make their new hybrid.

This is the last place I want to be heard whinging about the construction industry, rather I hope its a way of explaining the motivation behind my new R&D project. Tesla have been very clever to take their car battery technology and make it available for our homes:  http://www.teslamotors.com/en_GB/powerwall

Keeping the services self contained and movable is incredibly liberating and I have a hunch it will end up looking fantastic too. Even the Tesla Motors Powerwall as yet misses the opportunity to have the house and car working together. I want to link this autonomous concept with my Once a Car project: http://nickmeech1.blogspot.co.uk to integrate a hybrid car into the services in a new house.

I'm funding this new R&D with the money from selling the Culmstock Whole: http://nickmeech1.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/the-whole.html           I would love to attract some tech partners to be part of the team that can bring new products to market and make the installation of house services far more dynamic. They would benefit from a share in the IP, some new product designs and be able to get their own funding through R&D Tax Credits: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/corporation-tax-research-and-development-rd-relief

At the very least it will provide stimulation to the architectural world and good green PR for a hopefully british car manufacturer. Car makers are being forced to confront their environmental impact, especially in some US states. This has yet to materialise to the same degree in the built environment but the imperative no less and the rewards potentially even greater.

In the best tradition of concept cars, some sexy looking prototypes are a good start. Exploring the potential in this way will help inform the longer term design brief and perhaps create the some of the excitement in those buying houses as cars. Docking your car into your house to make use of its solar panels is obvious but so is central locking so my end game is to bring products to market. This deconstruction of space and services is just a handy method to ensure our designs are not held back by architectural tradition or high prototyping budgets.