Popular Science's Home of the Future

Popular Science is partnering with Sunset in the creation of an â€idea home†near San Francisco. The project´s focus is future home technology, including design elements, construction materials and cool consumer-tech products. The house, designed by the Dahlin Group, is under construction now and will be open for tours for 10 weeks this fall. The house and the products featured in it will appear in magazines, on TV, on the Web and in various other media outlets. (The total readership of both magazines is 14 million, and the media hits from national and local news should be quite high, so the exposure will be terrific.)

Every room of the house will be equipped with new home technologies, but the most interesting and high-profile of these will be in our Tech Loft. In this space we´ll showcase futuristic prototype technologies, including all manner of things you´d find in the home: gadgets and accessories, computers, robots, appliances, recreational items, tools and furniture. Some will be high-concept, and others will be functionally straightforward-either visions of a distant future or something that could be available tomorrow. What´s critical is that the products are visually interesting and high-tech. Prototypes are acceptable; these objects don´t necessarily have to be operable, though that would certainly be great. We will even consider graphic representations where three-dimensional models don´t yet exist.

We are soliciting designers and visionaries interested in contributing models or representations to this area, which will function as a museum of future home design. Selected products and designs must be available on loan to us for the full 10 weeks. We´ll need a text explanation of the design theory for and functionality of each product, and we´ll be in direct and frequent communication with every contributor chosen.

Submission deadline: July 7, 2006

Contact:

Eric Adams

Senior Editor

Popular Science

212-779-5432

eric.adams@time4.com