The so-called 'House of the Future,' with its conference hall, cafeteria and Internet café, is an impressive demonstration of what is possible today and may well be everyday reality in ten years' time. This futuristic project has it all, from speech and LCD displays for controlling building functions to the latest methods of energy generation and sorting recyclable waste, together with ultra-modern computer workstations located throughout the house and fully integrated into the living environment.

The house opened in May this year, and is the third incarnation of an idea that led Peter Bongers und Frank Beliën to establish the Living Tomorrow concept in 1991. The aim was to create an environment to showcase the capabilities of cutting-edge technology. The successor to the Living Tomorrow 1 complex, which was opened in 1995 in a ceremony attended by Bill Gates, Living Tomorrow 2 highlights in particular how rapid the advances in communications technology have been. But it also demonstrates which visions have failed to live up to their early promise.

The guided tour of the house takes about an hour, and there's plenty to see. Living Tomorrow 2 aims to anticipate future developments in a total of nine different areas:

• Information technology
• Environmental conservation
• Energy
• Mobility
• House control
• Construction
• Interior design
• Security technology
• New media

A number of key technologies are deployed throughout the house, such as voice recognition, touch screens and software agents. When we arrive at the house, an artificial voice welcomes us over the intercom. We want to see John, we say. He's not home, the machine tells us. But we can still speak to him, because the intelligent house knows more than just who is in at the moment and who isn't. If we want, it will call a (mobile) telephone number and put us through to John via the intercom. But we decline the offer and follow our guide into the house.

We find ourselves in an entrance hall, which also leads to the stairs. To our left is the lounge; to the right, the downstairs toilet and a utility room. Although we are in the middle of the house, the room is as light as day. But it's not artificially lit. A glance at the ceiling reveals all: a glass roof over the first floor has the dual function of letting in light and helping to produce electricity via an array of solar energy panels. Although the panels cover all but 30 per cent of the roof, enough light still penetrates throughout the day. Sunlight is clearly an important source of electricity in this new world.

Creature comforts guaranteed

In the lounge next door, it becomes apparent why the house doesn't have any normal light switches. Instead, there are little LCD displays set in the walls with touch screens that do the same job. These screens make it possible to control the temperature throughout the house, activate the burglar alarm, and turn out the lights. As our guide shows us, it's also possible to select global preferences. At the touch of a button, the lounge comes to life. The blinds on the large front windows silently glide down, the light is slowly turned up. As the fire begins to glow, the whole room is filled with soft music. We decide not to ask the name of this suggestive group of settings…

On closer examination, we spy the tiny ultra-modern loudspeakers fixed to the wall next to the flat screen TV. Unlikely though it seems, a sound test confirms that the music now filling the room really is coming from these cubes, which are no bigger than a clenched fist. Needless to say, the fire burning in the hearth isn't wood either, but gas - so much more ecofriendly. The room nonetheless warms up nicely.

The kitchen, too, is a model of high-tech design, like the induction cooker which provides just the right heat regardless of where saucepans are positioned on the hob. Storage areas disappear from view at the touch of a button. There's an ever-friendly kitchen assistant too, but sadly not made of flesh and blood. Activated by speech and touch technology, our little friend helps out with recipes and also lends a hand with ordering groceries on the Internet. There are three chutes built into the side of the house for deliveries: one for frozen food, the second for chilled groceries, and the last a dry goods store. A PIN code guards against unauthorised access to the chutes and is notified to the delivery company together with the order.

The intelligent fridge, on the other hand, turned out to have been not such a good idea. Designed to recognise its contents using bar codes and reorder items automatically, it was too clumsy and complicated, says our guide. This, too, is part of the Living Tomorrow concept: dropping ideas that don't work as the project evolves.

The house that runs itself

As we move into the utility room on the ground floor, the level of complexity currently involved in controlling the house's functions becomes clear. Next to several 19" cabinets crammed with electronic equipment, we also encounter our first Toshiba computers. They won't be the last, though, since Toshiba is one of the project's sponsors. All the desktop PCs, servers and notebook computers used throughout the house sport the red Toshiba logo. High levels of quality and availability are clearly essential - if the control mechanisms fail, the house pretty much grinds to a halt, a fact that even the people in charge of the project are quite prepared to admit.

Among all this advanced technology, there are also minor innovations that are set to have a major impact, as a glance in the downstairs toilet reveals. Alongside the intelligent water-saving toilets and basins, there's something that few people will have seen: a female urinal that your modern lady can approach backwards and use without touching. That might be quite a change from what we're used to, but such systems are already in operation in public toilets in Belgium and Holland, including Amsterdam's Schiphol airport.

Welcome to the home cinema

Upstairs, the high-tech theme continues. Besides the bathroom and children's bedroom, there's also an entire home cinema, controlled by Toshiba PCs. Images are beamed from a PC via the ceiling onto a 2 x 3 metre screen. Our guide shows us how we'll be able to select a film on the PC, download it and pay on a pay-per-view basis. The system provides a stunning visual and audio experience, with the integrated surround sound system generating an authentic cinema atmosphere.

But the home theatre is not just about entertainment. Tucked away between hallway and 'cinema' is a small circular office, with two tall, semi-circular swing doors opening out towards the home theatre or the rest of the first floor. Residents can either face the private cinema, using the big screen as the PC's display, or enjoy the view across the lounge and staircase. Work will never seem the same again!

The bedroom, with its en-suite bathroom, also offers the ultimate in convenience and comfort. Here again, the settings concept comes into play. At the touch of a button, the bed moves from sleeping into reading position, the curtains close and a flat screen TV mounted on a ceiling rail is switched on. But the real showstopper is the way the elegant 16:9 display can travel along the ceiling from the bedroom into the bathroom, meaning you can keep in touch with the latest news from around the world even when enjoying a relaxing bath.

On a more serious note, the intelligent beds adjust to match individual body positions and log sleep quality throughout the night. So if you wake up in the morning feeling exhausted rather than refreshed, you can check the chart on the TV screen for confirmation of just how badly you slept.

Notebook computer for school

The focus in the children's bedroom is on mobility. The wardrobe, bed and chairs are all mounted on lockable castors to allow a large play area to be created with minimum effort. The desk features a Toshiba notebook, used as an educational tool in the classroom during the day - another idea that will become increasingly common over the coming years.

As we arrive at the end of the tour, our guide uses a model to demonstrate that the House of the Future also includes remote control functionality. By using a GSM mobile to send special SMS messages back home from wherever you happen to be, you can open the garage door, put the heating on in the lounge, or run yourself a bath. Just pick your temperature and let technology do the rest.

It also works the other way round, of course. In the event of a break-in, the intelligent house doesn't just call the police, it also sends a warning signal by SMS to the owner. Mind you, not all of us might welcome that, with the prospect of panic setting in every time the phone rings.

The house is open to groups and individual visitors every day from Monday to Saturday during July and August and on weekends and bank holidays for the rest of the year. The project team reports that more than 12 million euros have been invested in the complex. This money has come primarily from the many sponsors whose products and technology are featured in the house. In addition to local companies from Belgium, sponsors include such big-name multinationals as Xerox, 3Com and Microsoft. Toshiba is also actively supporting the project, providing all the desktop and notebook PCs and servers used in the house and the adjacent 'Office of the Future.' So far, Living Tomorrow is solely a Belgian phenomenon, but there are plans for expansion in the future - first of all to London and Amsterdam, then to other European cities such as Berlin.

CONTACT:
Living Tomorrow
Indringsweg 1

1800 Vilvoorde (near Brussels)
Belgium

Tel: +32-2-2630133
Fax: +32-2-2630144

Admission: 300 BEF (EUR 7.4) per person

Internet: www.livtom.com