The information highway will help by prescreening all incoming communications, whether live phone calls, multi-media documents, e-mail, advertisements, or even news flashes. Anyone who has been approved by you will be able to get through to your electronic in-box or ring your phone. You might allow some people to send you mail but not to telephone. You might let others call when you have indicated you’re not busy and let still others get through anytime. You won’t want to receive thousands of unsolicited advertisements every day, but if you are looking for tickets to a sold-out concert, you’ll want to get responses to your solicitations right away. Incoming communications will be tagged by source and type—for instance, ads, greetings, inquiries, publications, work-related documents, or bills. You’ll set explicit delivery policies. You’ll decide who can make your phone ring during dinner, who can reach you in your car, or when you’re on vacation, and which kinds of calls or messages are worth waking you for in the middle of the night. You’ll be able to make as many distinctions as you need and to change the criteria whenever you want. Instead of giving out your telephone number, which can be passed around and used indefinitely, you will add a welcome caller’s name to a constantly updated list indicating your level of interest in receiving his messages. If someone not on any of your lists wants to get to you, he’ll have to have someone who is listed forward the message. You’ll always be able to demote someone to a lower level or delete a name altogether from all level lists. If you do that, to get your attention the caller will have to send you a paid message, as discussed in chapter 8.
The changes in technology will start to influence architecture. As the ways in which homes are used change, the buildings will evolve. Computer-controlled displays of various sizes will be built into the design of the house. Wires to connect components will be installed during construction, and thought will be given to the placement of screens in relation to windows to minimize reflection and glare. When information appliances are connected to the highway, there will be less need for many physical things—reference books, stereo receivers, compact discs, fax machines, file drawers, and storage boxes for records and receipts. A lot of space-consuming clutter will collapse into digital information that can be recalled at will. Even old photographs will be able to be stored digitally and called up on a screen instead of having to sit in a frame.
I’ve been giving these details a lot of thought because I’m building a house now, and in it I’m trying to anticipate the near future. My house is being designed and constructed so that it’s a bit ahead of its time, but perhaps it suggests things about the future of homes. When I describe the plans, people sometimes give me a look that says, “You’re sure you really want to do this?”
Like almost anyone who contemplates building a house, I want mine to be in harmony with its surroundings and with the needs of the people who will occupy it. I want it to be architecturally appealing. Mostly, though, I want it to be comfortable. It’s where my family and I will live. A house is an intimate companion or, in the words of the great twentieth-century architect Le Corbusier, “a machine for living in.”
My house is made of wood, glass, concrete, and stone. It’s built into a hillside and most of the glass faces west over Lake Washington to Seattle to take advantage of the sunset and Olympic mountain views.
My house is also made of silicon and software. The installation of silicon microprocessors and memory chips, and the software that makes them useful, will let the house approximate some of the features the information highway will, in a few years, bring to millions of houses. The technology I’ll use is experimental today, but over time portions of what I’m doing could become widely accepted and will get less expensive. The entertainment system will be a close enough simulation of how media usage will work that I will be able to get a sense of what it will be like to live with various technologies.
It won’t, of course, be possible to simulate the highway’s applications, which require that a lot of people be connected. A private information highway is a little like only one person having a telephone. The really interesting highway applications will grow out of the participation of tens or hundreds of millions of people, who will not just consume entertainment and other information, but will create it, too. Until millions of people are communicating with one another, exploring subjects of common interest and making all sorts of multi-media contributions, including high-quality video, there won’t be an information highway.
The cutting-edge technology in the house I’m building won’t just be for previewing entertainment applications. It will also help meet the usual domestic needs: for heat, light, comfort, convenience, pleasure, and security. This technology will be replacing older forms that we take for granted now. It wasn’t that long ago that the public would have been amazed at the idea of a house with electric lights, flush toilets, telephones, and air-conditioning. My goal is a house that offers entertainment and stimulates creativity in a relaxed, pleasant, welcoming atmosphere. These desires aren’t very different from those of people who could afford adventurous houses in the past. I’m experimenting to find out what works best, but there’s a long tradition of that, too.
In 1925, when William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper magnate, moved into his California castle, San Simeon, he wanted the best in modern technology. In those days it was awkward and time-consuming to tune radio receivers to stations, so he had several radios installed in the basement of San Simeon, each tuned to a different station. The speaker wires ran to Hearst’s private suite on the third floor, where they were routed into a fifteenth-century oak cabinet. At the push of a button, Hearst could listen to the station of his choice. It was a marvel in its day. Today this is a standard feature on every car radio.
I am certainly in no way comparing my house with San Simeon, one of the West Coast’s monuments to excess. The only connection I’m making is that the technological innovations I have in mind for my house are not really different in spirit from those Hearst wanted in his. He wanted news and entertainment, all at a touch. So do I.
I began thinking about building a new house in the late 1980s. I wanted craftsmanship but nothing ostentatious. I wanted a house that would accommodate sophisticated, changing technology, but in an unobtrusive way that made it clear that technology was the servant, not the master. I didn’t want the house to be defined by its use of technology. Originally the house was designed as a bachelor pad, but when Melinda and I got married we changed the plan to make it more suitable for a family. For instance, the kitchen was improved so it could better accommodate a family. However, the appliances have no more advanced technology than you’d find in any other well-appointed kitchen. Melinda also pointed out and corrected the fact that I had a great study but there was no place designated for her to work.
I found some property on the shore of Lake Washington within easy commuting distance of Microsoft. In 1990, work on a guest cottage began. Then, in 1992, we began excavating and laying the foundation for the main residence. This was a big job, requiring a lot of concrete, because Seattle is an earthquake zone at least as perilous as California.