My Ideal House, by Gregg Millett

Whenever I think about designing a house, that beautiful little hexagonal home that I built in Nicaragua dominates my imagination. The new one, however, is not handmade and not unplugged. Indeed, it is made in a factory and WIRED. It has an efficient heating, cooling and air circulation system and indoor plumbing! It may be plugged into a grid or may have an independent power system.

Major Features:

It is hexagonal and all utilities are consolidated in a center core.

Dimension are about 18 feet per side or about 850 sq. feet. It has a wrap-around porch with a second story as an option. It might also have a basement and a garage connected to one of the six sides.

The kitchen and the bathroom are factory-made modular units adjacent to and plugged into the center utility core.

There is free-flow between the six areas with accordian partitions for privacy.

There are no windows. One of the six outer walls has a large high definition screen which is the connection to the outdoors and to the world. The connection to the outdoors is through exterior remote controlled video cameras; the connection to the world is through digital cable or satellite. There are additional small flat screens in other areas as desired. I'm currently testing "looking out the window" by looking at a TV monitor which displays the outdoor view by way of a remote camera. It's surprisingly pleasing especially when I can sit at my desk and still pan and zoom as desired.

Probably there is a half upper loft for sleeping with the other upper half open to the roof for a feeling of spaciousness.

Every section of the house is a factory-made module that clips, snaps, bolts or is belted into place.

For dense living these hexagonal houses can be adjacent and/or stacked -- like beehives. The utilities probably need to be
redesigned for multiple unit efficiency and the "outdoor" cameras will focus on the entranceway, streetscapes and
the setting sun.

That's it for now, but time is short, and we've got to keep thinking.