The New New Home: How technology is shaping your dwelling

Boyce Thompson, 59, spent 17 years working with builders and architects to create concept homes for Builder magazine, using ideas that builders could put to use in their own projects. Thompson, former editorial director of Builder and a writer and lecturer on the building industry, is the author of The New New Home (Taunton Press, $27). He spoke with The Record recently about new home technologies, how home buyers and builders changed after the housing bust, and what might surprise you about his own home. An edited transcript:

Q. What are some of the ideas that you used in the concept homes that are now in wider use?

Virtually all the homes had an energy agenda. Right from the beginning, we realized that was a way for new homes to stand out in the marketplace.

When we first started building the houses, open floor plans werent nearly as prevalent as they are today. We extended that trend to the max.

The designs almost always integrated the back yard with the house; they typically had back porches, whether screened or not.

One big trend we used is the disappearing glass wall a wall of windows that opens up. They used to cost $40,000; now you can get a reasonable facsimile for about $5,000. You can have these beautiful spaces living rooms, dining rooms, great rooms with window walls that open onto porch spaces and create the feeling that its all one big space.

I did a net zero house (which produces as much energy as it uses) before net zero was cool; we built our first one in 2005. We realized that you have to first build the most energy-efficient structure you can. Then after youve made it real tight, you figure out how many photovoltaics to put on the roof.

In one house, we dug wells for geothermal (heating and cooling) in the back yard, and thats something thats really caught on in the last two or three years.

Q. What are the obstacles to getting some of these concepts to go mainstream?

Most of the things we did, you frequently find in custom homes. The question is why arent more cool features designed into production homes. Thats always a matter of cost. A builder, like a retailer, is just putting a product out there and hoping people will buy it. Its a constant struggle for the builder to figure out which features have value, that people might pay for.

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The New New Home: How technology is shaping your dwelling