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Xanadu House

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   The Xanadu Houses were a series of experimental homes, built to
   showcase examples of computers and automation in the home in the United
   States. The architectural project began in 1979, and during the early
   1980s three houses were built in different parts of the United States:
   one each in Kissimmee, Florida; Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin; and
   Gatlinburg, Tennessee. The houses included novel construction and
   design techniques, and became popular tourist attractions during the
   1980s.

   The Xanadu Houses were notable for being built with polyurethane
   insulation foam rather than concrete, for easy, fast, and
   cost-effective construction. They were ergonomically designed, and
   contained some of the earliest home automation systems. The Kissimmee
   Xanadu, designed by Roy Mason, was the most popular, and at its peak
   was attracting 1000 visitors every day. The Wisconsin Dells and
   Gatlinburg houses were closed and demolished in the early 1990s; the
   Kissimmee Xanadu House was closed in 1996 and demolished in October
   2005.

History

   Bob Masters, who conceived the Xanadu House concept, was an early
   pioneer in creating and living in houses built of rigid insulation.
   Before creating Xanadu House, Masters designed and created inflatable
   balloons to be used in the construction of the house. He was inspired
   by the Kesinger House in Denver, by architect Stan Nord Connolly, one
   of the earliest homes built from insulation. Masters built his first
   home in 1969 in two-and-a-half days during a blustery snowstorm, using
   the same methods later used to build the Xanadu houses. Masters was
   convinced that these dome-shaped homes built of foam could work for
   others, so he decided to create a series of show homes around the
   country. Masters’s business partner Tom Gussel chose the name "Xanadu"
   for the homes, a reference to Mongol Emperor Kublai Khan’s summer
   residence Xanadu, which is prominently featured in Samuel Taylor
   Coleridge’s famous poem Kubla Khan. "Xanadu" is also the name of the
   palace in the movie Citizen Kane.

   The first Xanadu House was located in Wisconsin Dells. It was designed
   by architect Stewart Gordon in 1979, and was created by Bob Masters. It
   was 4,000 square feet in area, and featured a geodesic greenhouse. In
   its first summer, 100,000 people visited the new attraction.

   The most popular Xanadu house was the second house, designed by
   architect Roy Mason. Masters had met Mason at a futures conference in
   Toronto in 1980. Mason had worked on a similar project prior to his
   involvement in the creation of the Kissimmee Xanadu House — an
   “experimental school” on a hill in Virginia which was also a foam
   structure. Both Mason and Masters were influenced by other experimental
   houses and building concepts which emphasized ergonomics, usability,
   and energy efficiency. These included apartments designed by architect
   Kisho Kurokawa featuring detachable building modules and more
   significant designs including a floating habitat made of fibreglass
   designed by Jacques Beufs for living on water surfaces, concepts for
   living underwater by architect Jacques Rougerie and the Don Metz house
   built in the 1970s which took advantage of the earth as insulation.
   Fifty years before Xanadu House, another "House of Tomorrow" at the
   Century Progress Exposition in Chicago introduced air conditioning,
   forced air heating, circuit breakers, electric eye doors, and other
   innovative features.

   Mason believed Xanadu House would alter people's views of houses as
   little more than inanimate, passive shelters against the elements. "No
   one's really looked at the house as a total organic system," said
   Mason, who was also the architecture editor of The Futurist magazine.
   "The house can have intelligence and each room can have intelligence."
   The estimated cost of construction for one home was $300,000. Roy Mason
   also planned a low cost version which would cost $80,000, to show that
   homes using computers do not have to be expensive. The low cost Xanadu
   was never built.

   Disney opened the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow in
   Florida on October 1, 1982 as the EPCOT Centre. Masters and Mason
   decided to open a Xanadu House several miles away in Kissimmee. It
   eventually opened in 1983, after several years of research into the
   concepts Xanadu would use. It was over 6,000 square feet in size,
   considerably larger than the average house because it was built as a
   showcase. At its peak in the mid 1980s, more than 1,000 people were
   visiting the new Kissimmee attraction every day. A third Xanadu House
   was built in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Shortly after the Xanadu Houses
   were built and opened as visitor attractions, tourism companies began
   to advertise them as the "home of the future" in brochures encouraging
   people to visit.
   The exterior of the Xanadu House in Kissimmee, Florida in 2004
   Enlarge
   The exterior of the Xanadu House in Kissimmee, Florida in 2004

   By the early 1990s, the Xanadu houses began to lose popularity because
   the technology they used was quickly becoming obsolete, and as a result
   the houses in Wisconsin and Tennessee were demolished, while the Xanadu
   House in Kissimmee continued to operate as a public visitor attraction
   until it was closed in 1996. It was consequently put up for sale in
   1997 and was sold for office and storage use. By 2001 the Kissimmee
   house had suffered greatly from mold and mildew throughout the interior
   due to a lack of maintenance since being used as a visitor attraction,
   it was put up for sale again for an asking price of US$2 million. By
   October 2005, the last of the Xanadu houses had been demolished,
   following years of abandonment and use by the homeless. A condominium
   is planned for the Xanadu tract.

Design

   Xanadu House was ergonomically designed, with future occupants in mind.
   It used curved walls, painted concrete floors rather than carpets, a
   light colour scheme featuring cool colors throughout, and an open-floor
   plan linking rooms together without the use of doors. The modular
   exterior was reminiscent of a UFO, because of the domes built by
   spraying polyurethane foam onto removable molds. Xanadu House featured
   white painted walls, a communications pole, an outside public toilet,
   and a lake. It had at least two entrances, and large porthole-type
   windows. The interior of Xanadu was cave-like, featuring cramped rooms
   and low ceilings. The interior used a cream color for the walls, and a
   pale green for the floor. At the centre of the house was the living
   room, in which a large false tree supported the roof, and also acted as
   part of the built-in heating system.

   Construction of the Xanadu house in Kissimmee, Florida, began with the
   pouring of a concrete slab base and the erection of a tension ring 40
   feet in diameter to anchor the domed roof of what would become the
   "Great Room" of the house. A pre-shaped vinyl balloon was formed and
   attached to the ring, and then inflated by air pressure from large
   fans. Once the form was fully inflated, its interior surface was
   sprayed with quick-hardening polyurethane plastic foam. Spraying from
   the inside permitted work to continue even in wet or windy weather. The
   foam, produced by the sudden mixture of two chemicals that expand on
   contact to 30 times their original volume, hardened almost instantly.
   Repeated spraying produced a five-to-six-inch-thick structurally sound
   shell within a few hours. Once the foam cured, the plastic balloon form
   was removed to be used again. Once the second dome was completed and
   the balloon form removed, the two rooms were joined together by wire
   mesh which was also sprayed with foam to form a connecting gallery or
   hall. This process was repeated until the house was complete. Window,
   skylight, and door openings were cut and the frames foamed into place.
   Finally, the interior of the entire structure was sprayed with a 3/4
   inch coating of fireproof material that also provided a smooth,
   easy-to-clean finish for walls and ceilings. The exterior was given a
   coat of white elastomeric paint as the final touch.

Interior

   The Xanadu Houses used an automated system controlled by Commodore
   microcomputers. The houses had 15 rooms each, of these the kitchen,
   party room, health spa, and bedrooms all used computers and other
   electronics equipment heavily in their design. For example, the bath
   could be filled with water at a set temperature on a specific date and
   time. The automation concepts which Xanadu House used are based on
   original ideas conceived in the 1950s and earlier. The Xanadu Houses
   aimed to bring the original concepts into a finished and working
   implementation. As visitors followed an electronic tour guide of the
   house, featuring constantly changing computer-graphics art shows on
   video screens in the family room, they learned about the different
   advantages and features of the Xanadu House including the security and
   fire systems.

   The main features of the Xanadu House design included an "electronic
   hearth" featuring a television, games console, sound system, VCR and
   other electronics equipment, an automated kitchen including
   tele-shopping and housekeeping capabilities, a family room with several
   television sets to watch multiple channels at once, a
   telecommunications antenna, computer-controlled heating and
   computer-controlled electricity and gas usage.

   Xanadu House's kitchen was automated by "autochef", an electronic
   dietitian which planned well-balanced meals. Meals could be cooked
   automatically at a set date and time. If new food was required, it
   could either be obtained via tele-shopping through the computer system
   or from Xanadu's own greenhouse. The kitchen's computer terminal could
   also be used for the household calendar, records, and home book
   keeping.

   The Xanadu homes also suggested a way to do business at home with the
   office room and the use of computers for electronic mail, access to
   stock and commodities trading, and news services.

   Computers in the master bedroom allowed for other parts of the house to
   be controlled. This eliminated chores such as having to go downstairs
   to turn off the coffee pot after one had gone to bed. The children's
   bedroom featured the latest in teaching microcomputers and
   "videotexture" windows, whose realistic computer-generated landscapes
   could shift in a flash from scenes of real places anywhere in the world
   to imaginary scenes. The beds at the right of the room retreated into
   the wall to save space and cut down on clutter; the study niches were
   just the right size for curling up all alone with a pocket computer
   game or a book.

   The "great room" was the largest room in the entire Xanadu home, and
   included a fountain, small television set, and a video projector.
   Nearby was the dining room, featuring a glass table with a curved seat
   surrounding it; behind the seats was a large window covering the entire
   wall. The family room featured television monitors and other electronic
   equipment covering the walls. The builders called the entertainment
   centre an "electronic hearth". It was planned as a gathering place for
   family members and relatives, just as is a traditional hearth with a
   fireplace.

   In the spa, people could relax in a whirlpool, sun sauna, and
   environmentally-controlled habitat, and even exercise with the help of
   spa monitors. One of the advantages of using computers in the home
   includes security. In Xanadu House, a HAL-type voice would speak when
   someone entered to make the intruder think someone was home.

Disadvantages

   An initial concern was that the cost of electricity would be excessive,
   since several computers would be running all day, all year. However,
   Mason figured that a central computer could control the energy
   consumption of all the other computers in the house. Many believed
   using computers in the home was a disadvantage, because if the computer
   failed, occupants would be restricted from getting food, having a bath,
   and even leaving the house if doors are locked. Many also resisted the
   concept of computers in the home because of concerns people would
   become less social. Those in favour argued that computers improved
   security and helped get household chores such as cleaning done quickly.

   While the majority of people who visited a Xanadu House felt at ease
   because of the organic design, others felt that the concept was not
   viable because it was badly affected by the weather. Other architects
   and designers saw Xanadu House as an unprofessional architectural
   design because of the materials used, and the odd use of colors and
   shapes inside the home. Designers continued to build
   conventionally-shaped homes, dismissing Xanadu House as an unsuccessful
   concept. Many disliked Xanadu House as a practical home because of its
   low ceilings, curved walls, and cramped rooms.

Xanadu in print

   A book about Xanadu House entitled Xanadu: The Computerized Home of
   Tomorrow and How It Can Be Yours Today! and written by Roy Mason, Lane
   Jennings and Robert Evans was published by Acropolis Books in November
   1983. The book explains how computers can be used in the home,
   including many concepts in use today such as integrated media centers,
   televisions and sound systems; it also describes how the Xanadu Houses
   were designed and constructed, including interviews with Bob Masters.
   The book includes several photos of the Xanadu Houses, and discusses
   several other similar examples of architecture that used rigid
   insulation or an automated computer system.

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