What might become standard for future homes that isn’t common today?

The integration of nature

Dr. lorien nesbitt

Associate Professor, Department of Forest Resources Management

In a warming, densifying world, future homes will be designed to provide more than shelter; they will actively protect and sustain the people who live in them. Nature will be treated as essential infrastructure, supporting cooling, everyday wellbeing, connection, and care. This will include both interiors and the neighbourhood spaces immediately around them.

We will see more shade trees along streets and at transit stops, biodiverse plantings, and small, accessible green spaces within a short walk of home. These features will help reduce urban temperatures while supporting mental and physical health. At the scale of the home and building, design will increasingly support social connection through shaded courtyards, shared gardens, and front-facing thresholds that make it easier for neighbours to gather and to check in on one another during extreme events. Inside, greater use of natural light, ventilation, and materials will further support comfort and well-being.

Equity will be central to these shifts. If housing is to meet the challenges ahead, it must be designed around those most vulnerable to climate risks, ensuring access to safe, stable, and climate-resilient living environments. In this sense, resilience will become a shared standard, because resilience that is not shared is not resilience at all.

intelligence

Dr. jennifer boger

Adjunct Professor, School of Health and Exercise Sciences, UBC Okanagan; Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Systems Design Engineering, University of Waterloo

“Smart homes” will become “intelligent homes” with an increased ability to understand what is going on and react appropriately. More accurate representations (digital twinning) of a home’s occupants will translate into more tailored and dynamic support. Homes will be able to autonomously learn about their occupants and adapt to changes.

Beyond convenience, homes that complement lived experiences offer exciting opportunities for health and wellness, such as supporting an older adult who is experiencing changes in cognition caused by dementia.

Digital twinning also means your intelligent home can go wherever you do. For example, when you go on vacation, your Airbnb knows your preferences the minute you walk in the door, as do the hospital room and care team if you have an accident.

Making intelligent homes a reality will require just as much attention to the human side as the technical one. Aspects such as privacy, security, consent, and data ownership need careful, cross-disciplinary thinking and innovation. Moreover, support systems must be broadly accessible, including good options for people who do not want to be monitored.

living walls

Professor joseph dahmen

Director, Biogenic Architecture Lab, School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture

In the future, carbon-intensive building materials will be replaced by living structures that are grown rather than manufactured. By drawing on natural processes, these structures will offer responsive, flexible architectural spaces. Currently, buildings account for nearly 40 per cent of anthropogenic carbon emissions. A growing share comes from material manufacturing. Concrete and steel together account for approximately 15 per cent of all carbon emissions. In contrast, micro-organisms—which make up more than half of all living matter—perform vital functions with minimal impact. By harnessing microbial processes such as biomineralization—which produces structural bone from soft tissue, as well as coral reefs thousands of kilometres long—we can produce biodegradable, self-healing structural materials. Other processes—including carbon fixation; hyphal growth, which refers to the extension of branching fungal filaments into larger networks; and the production of nanocellulose, a strong and lightweight material derived from plant fibres or bacteria—offer similar potential for architecture. These hyperlocal living materials foster reciprocal connections to natural ecologies, replacing resource scarcity with the abundant natural intelligence of ecological systems.

neighbourhood integration

Dr. sean lauer

Professor, Department of Sociology

Perhaps our future homes will follow an open concept—not the interior design concept of blending rooms like kitchens and other living spaces in the home, but blending the household with its broader neighbourhood context.

The future home could provide space for private lives but embrace the wider community for everything else: co-working spaces rather than home offices; neighbourhood parks and community gardens rather than back yards; family game rooms at community centres and local theatres rather than entertainment rooms.

Social infrastructure describes the physical places in neighbourhoods and communities that bring people together with neighbours and others. They are also places that meet specific needs, including providing a variety of fun, intellectual and political engagement, and social care. Perhaps our future homes are just one component of a rich and convivial neighbourhood life.

the capacity to evolve

dr. xun liu

Assistant Professor, School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture

Architects have long imagined buildings that evolve. Cedric Price proposed adaptive, responsive structures over 60 years ago. What was visionary then is becoming practical now. AI and real-time data are closing the gap between intention and reality.

Future homes will learn. Sensors will read how spaces are actually used: when rooms overheat, where air stagnates, how daylight shifts across seasons. AI will adjust shading, ventilation, and energy systems accordingly. The home becomes a quiet collaborator, refining itself through inhabitation rather than remaining frozen at the moment of construction.

This reframes what design means. A home is no longer a finished product handed from architect to occupant. It is an ongoing conversation between people, environment, and data, one that grows more attuned over time, especially as our climate becomes less predictable.

healthy air

dr. joshua brinkerhoff

Associate Professor, UBC Okanagan School of Engineering (Mechanical)

On the first day of each month, my wife changes the air filter from our home’s ventilation system. While I’m happy to get rid of all the nasty stuff the filter removes, it’s somewhat unsettling to consider what is floating around my family’s breathing space. What if future homes had devices that captured infectious particles immediately upon their release, and not after they had swirled around the home?

This thought has motivated my research team at UBC Okanagan, leading to the development of multiple prototype devices that immediately collect infectious particles right after they are exhaled. In the future, compact devices with antiviral materials, sophisticated fluid dynamics, and ultra-compact blowers may quietly and comfortably remove infectious particles directly from the source. Installed throughout a home or office, such systems will help ensure that future homes enjoy healthy air, reducing the risk of being infected by airborne pathogens.