|16 February 2016|
UK
Super-skyscrapers which will dwarf the Shard, under water bubble cities and origami furniture are all likely to be reality in 100 years’ time. That’s the verdict of a new study which paints a vivid picture of our future lives; suggesting the way we live, work and play will change beyond all recognition over the course of the next century.
The SmartThings Future Living Report was authored by a team of leading academics including TV presenter and one of the UK’s leading space scientists, Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock, award-winning futurist architects and lecturers at the University of Westminster Arthur Mamou-Mani and Toby Burgess, as well as pioneering urbanists Linda Aitken and Els Leclerq.
The report was commissioned on behalf of SmartThings, a system which easily allows people to make their home smarter, meaning that at any time and from anywhere it is possible to switch on lights, turn up the thermostat or unlock the back door, all via a simple app or automatically through our daily routines – something that might have seemed like science fiction as little as 10 years ago, but today is a reality.
The predictions for how we will live in the future have been brought to life via detailed animated architectural renders which show a futuristic London skyline where high rise apartments dwarf Europe’s highest building, The Shard, and show drone transportation and bubble-like underwater cities.
New technologies will revolutionise how we work, with virtual meetings commonplace, according to the report: our working lives will be transformed with the use of holograms which will allow us to attend meetings virtually, without leaving the comfort our homes.
Space Scientist Maggie Aderin-Pocock, who co-authored the report, commented: “Our lives today are almost unrecognisable from those a century ago. The internet has revolutionised the way we communicate, learn and control our lives. Just 25 years ago, technology like SmartThings would have been inconceivable, yet today, developments like this let us monitor, control and secure our living spaces with the touch of a smartphone. Over the next century we will witness further seismic shifts in the way we live and interact with our surroundings – working on The SmartThings Future Living Report with a panel of industry experts, has allowed me to explore what these could be.
“We are likely to see the emergence of towering megastructures as well as sub-aquatic cities and transportation via advanced flying drones – some of which could be strong enough to transport entire houses on holiday.”
Source: Samsung press release
