Tomorrow's Home 2050

Visions of home-based healthcare for healthy ageing and independent living

Tomorrow’s Home was an immersive installation where the home of the future – 30 years from now – became a reality. Drawing upon leading research from the UCL Institute of Healthcare Engineering, it playfully imagined how our dwellings could be designed to help us live independently and well as we age, and support our changing planet.

Tomorrowʼs Home created an immersive interactive exhibition for all ages, where the home of the future is brought alive. A public engagement activity, also funded by the Royal Academy of Engineering Ingenious award, used creative, imaginative speculations to get people to talk, to question, to anticipate, reflect and engage about some fundamental themes - our sense of ageing; the meaning of home; the role that technology can play in mediating our sense of identity and independent living, and our experience of health and well-being.

Exploring imagined health technologies, from the toilet that analyses your waste to the doormat that can detect intruders, and how they could become deeply embedded in people’s homes. Tomorrow’s Home questioned:

• Who is technology in our homes being created for?
• What impact will climate change have on our home lives?
• What kind of healthcare should be in our homes and what belongs outside the home?
• How can our homes help us stay connected to our communities in a world that is increasingly automated?
• What role can our homes play in reducing consumption and reusing and recycling more?

For further impact, the team developed a programme of interdisciplinary seminars/webinars and workshops that provided further context and a forum for people (from UCL and beyond) to explore and discuss these themes and what these may mean for them. These talks provided an accessible framework for people to engage with the research that inspired and informed the exhibition. Overall, the project's objective was to bring academic work into the public sphere, mediated by art and imagination through the exhibition.

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