Modular design and sextech integration will make your house more than a home

Love hotels for when sex needs a bit more room than microhomes can offer, as well as virtual and augmented reality to give the illusion of space, are certainly intriguing ideas. But there are more innovations in interactive tech and flexible design that will alter our houses of the future

So what happens when we take the concepts of modular construction and smart home technology and do a bit of future-casting?

Let’s rev up our imaginations and try to picture our sensual, and sexual, residences of the next century

Say hello to your Plug-and-play life

African American man putting on VR headset and looking around with smile while exploring futuristic cyberspace in living room at home

Building anything from scratch is not just difficult and time-consuming but very, very expensive. Modular home construction, however, is not just easier and cheaper than traditional methods but it also can provide a huge range of living options.

Think of it as plug and play: living room goes there, kitchen here, dining room there, workspace there, a place for guests, and then a special environment just for sex.

And if there isn’t a pre-designed room for what you want, you may very well be able to assemble your own. Standardized assembly means you don’t need to do anything from scratch.

Assembly of structures, too, is on the verge of a huge revolution. Combining modular structural design with giant versions of 3D printers, builders can now do in a week what would have taken months.

Smart homes for smart sex

Then there’s the idea of smart homes, which can take sexual space customization to a whole new level.

Part of the Internet of Things, the concept of the smart home is to create intelligent spaces embedded with sensors and actuators that are connected to a local network or the Internet. Heating, cooling, humidity, energy collection (via solar panels, etc), energy usage, what’s running low in your fridge, the progress of your laundry, what plants need attention in the garden… all of this and more will be tied into systems that will either act on their own or draw your attention to what you might need to do.

Your smart device (watch, phone, whatever) will let your residence know you are on your way, heating or cooling to the ideal temperature, prepping a shower or tub, pre-warming the oven, putting some tunes on. If you’re bringing a playmate along, their preferences could be added to the mix to create an idyllic environment for all kinds of sexual activities.

Live within your wildest dreams

To each their own, of course, but now that we have some tools to play with, let’s try a hand at envisioning our own erotic environment.

The heating and cooling would be intelligently designed and controlled, of course, intuiting your personal comfort. No more cold feet, goosebumps, or the unarousing sweat from being too hot. To save energy, it would switch itself off but would also able to be conjured into sensual comfort at a moment’s notice.

The walls could be configured to whatever suits your erotic needs. Want to go for a Victorian vibe? Flocked wallpaper and fancy trim could be clicked into place—or stored away when your needs change. Similarly, it could be equipped with transforming furniture: a gentle pull and your desk becomes a bed or a table becomes some unique form of BDSM sex equipment.

Projectors or luminescent panels could also be part of the decorations: digital illusions of everything from a luscious beach to a mesmerizing fantasy environment. Or why not enjoy a virtual group sex scene by projecting someone else’s bedroom onto your walls?

There’s no reason why you also couldn’t couple interactive sex tech devices to the environment as well. Each gentle wave from that beach illusion tied to the arousing action of all kinds of intimate devices, for instance.

Your friend, your lover, your residence

African girl wearing VR glasses and casual cloth while standing at futuristic city. Attractive gamer playing game while using augmented reality technology accessing in metaverse. AI concept Ingenuity.

Our pleasuredome could also monitor everything from pheromones to specific sound patterns and react by ramping our toys up, or cooling them down, as needed.

And let’s not forget our other senses. A subtle command to your home system and roses, leather, a pine forest, or fresh baked bread could tickle noses—supplied via a store of carefully selected scents. Perfectly balanced speakers would be embedded into the walls themselves, for a perfect surround-sound experience as well as some acoustic dampening for those who like their sex with volume.

Finally, as our home would be an intimate and efficient size, and made of units that could be simply added or subtracted, it would also be extremely portable. As with shipping containers designed to fit on trucks and ships, modular homes could be constructed to be easily transportable, needing only a standardized base for utilities like water, power, waste, and such.

Your home could come with you wherever you wanted to go: the world becoming just another optional feature for your personal environment.

Welcome to your home of the future

Intelligent bedrooms that will know and respond to your sexual desires. Portable and almost infinitely customizable microphones designed to be both comfortable and erotically alluring. It’s certainly fun to speculate, but if we’ve learned anything it’s that no matter what we dream up the real future is always much, much wilder.

But, no matter what does come next, we’ll hopefully all have a place to call home.

Image source: Depositphotos

The post Welcome to Your Pleasure Dome: Tomorrow’s Arousing Architecture appeared first on Future of Sex.

Places where pleasure, architecture, and urban planning go hand-in-hand

In Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution, famed anthropology and geography professor David Harvey writes, “The right to the city is not merely a right of access to what already exists, but a right to change it after our heart’s desire.” 

His use of the word desire, while not explicitly referring to sexual pleasure, offers an intriguing possibility: what if tomorrow’s cities were designed and built to be as arousing as they are efficient and comfortable?

Not necessarily explicitly so, but rather with the understanding that for many people, sex is an essential part of life and, therefore, shouldn’t be shunned, hidden away, and instead should be accepted and, dare we suggest, openly celebrated.

Sound like a more-than-somewhat radical idea?  You might be surprised that these sorts of sex-affirming cities have been around for hundreds of years—and might become more sensual, playful, and innovatively sex-tech-integrated in the future.

Right here, right now

Restricting ourselves to Europe, though other countries and continents have their fair share of pleasure-recognizing cities, Amsterdam and Hamburg’s sex work districts are often considered models for balancing a city’s needs with its citizens’ sensual passions.

In fact, when faced with a number of growing, predominantly tourist-related problems relating to its red light area, Amsterdam began planning the construction of a single, high-tech structure to protect sex workers and their clients.

If approved, The Erotic Center will take nearly seven years to complete, and, in addition to providing spaces for hundreds of sex workers to ply their trade, it would feature a dedicated police presence, on-site medical care, and other support services.

Similarly, Hamburg’s Reeperbahn has expanded dramatically, currently occupying a sizable section of the City. Mirroring Amsterdam, police are on hand, up-to-date healthcare facilities are available, and sex workers are licensed, which involves participating in mandatory, state-sponsored health counseling every year. 

Cities of love

Creating erotically stimulating living environments is also far from new. Several 1960s-70s avant-garde architects envisoned a wide scope of fascinating and frequently intentionally provocative or, depending on who you ask, playful, architectural concepts. Of these, Superstudio, based in Italy, and the UK’s Archigram are arguably the most recognized.

While Superstudio tended towards chilling, monolithic, Brutalist-inspired ideas, Archigram took a different, deconstructive approach like their Walking Cities, a self-contained, self-propelled ambling metropolis.

RECOMMENDED READ: Sensual Spaces: When Architecture, Sex, and VR Move In Together

Their Plug-In and, notably, Instant Cities put forward an interesting model for a possible sex-inclusive city by swapping fixed structures like buildings for individual, easily combinable or recombinable living units.

Meanwhile, Instant Cities are extra-modifiable via inflatable structures and extra-transportable by airship.  Think of them like swarms of mini-Burning Man festivals, drifting apart or coming together whenever or however their residents wanted or, better yet, desired.

Close your eyes and picture—

Echoing Archigram’s modular thinking, let’s put together our own pleasure-positive City, starting by taking Amsterdam and Hamburg’s intelligent, conscientious, approach to consensual sexwork by constructing a safe space for our residents to enjoy themselves.

While we’re at it, we might as well equip it with a bevy of cutting-edge sextech possibilities, from sexbot brothels and on-site shops selling super high-end models to specialized virtual reality experiences—the latter accessible either on-site or from the comfort of anyone’s home.

So why not take a page from Archigram’s book and give people the option to mix and match their accommodations or add any number of sex-related add-ons?  

Want your own BDSM playspace or luxuriously-sensual boudoir?  Merely purchase whichever one you want and snap it to your home, just like clicking a couple of Lego bricks together.

Naturally, our City must be fashioned out of low-impact, infinitely recyclable materials, be as energy and resource-self-sufficient as possible, and be designed from the ground up to be effortlessly upgradable so that when technologies improve, or situations change, we won’t have to tear everything down and start from scratch.

Brilliant, bright, and joyous

The author Amit Ray put it well, writing, “A smart city is a city where humans, trees, birds and other animals can grow with all their glories, imperfections, freedom, and creativity. They are not just cities of technology but cities of love, life, beauty, dignity, freedom, and equality.”

Image Sources: Depositphotos

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Home might be where the heart—and other exciting organs—will be

Inarguably, we are living in a time of incredible changes. Practically every field has been utterly transformed: medicine, government, publishing, the arts, social interaction, transportation, and so many other fields are totally unlike what they were only a few years ago.

Architecture is no exception. In fact, the whole concept of home—a space to rest, work, and play—is undergoing a total reinvention that’s also certainly lead by new technologies and techniques.

But also by sex.

More than four walls

There are two main driving forces in architecture: space and money. But, coming up on two decades into the 21st century, we are running critically short of both.

In answer to this, architects have been reducing cost and size. Places like San Francisco and New York, for instance, have already begun approving microapartments: spaces no bigger than 360 square feet.

For those who want their own home—but affordable and similarly micro—the tiny house movement is gaining serious momentum. Often built on trailer frames, they offer portability as well as a way of hoping to get around zoning laws in American cities that forbid houses under certain square footages.

This leaves a problem, though: intimacy. An apartment or tiny house is fine for one or two people, but erotic play usually requires a bit more space.

Or, to be more exact, it’s fun to romp around in a house bigger than a sneeze.

Places to live and love

Bedrooms used to be designed for sleeping—as well as other (ahem) activities. In fact, a look at the history of architecture reveals a lot about the sexual proclivities of their eras. The Brutalist school seems to lend itself to state-sponsored positions. The Victorians were prim and proper on the outside, yet wild and debauched behind closed doors. During the 60s, sex was augmented by mirrored ceilings, rotating beds, and lots of nice cushions.

RECOMMENDED READ: Creating Your Own Pleasuredome: Modular Building and Smart Home Technology

We are, however, approaching times when we just don’t have space for anything except for small and affordable.

But we can get a glimpse of where sexual architecture may very well be going by looking at what’s been happening in many countries for quite some time.

Arousing new environments

To people used to McMansions and sprawl, the idea of a hotel designed from the ground up to be a getaway for erotic adventures might seem unusual. But for residents of places like Tokyo and Mexico City, where space is a premium commodity, and—people being people—sex is on everyone’s mind, the logical conclusion is to offer a place to get what you can’t at home: sensual pleasure, sexy amenities, and lots of space.

In Japan, the concept is called a love hotel: a rentable room that occasionally offers services like adult films, sex toys, and hot tubs or saunas. The perfect getaway for those interested in amorous times, soundproofing, privacy and elbow room. It’s easy to see the possibilities of love hotel-type establishments popping in many other cosmopolitan areas.

So if your microhome doesn’t have enough room for what you like to do sex-wise then there may be an elegant and very full-service hotel just down the street.

Plenty of built-in features

Here’s yet another alternative for erotic playgrounds when space is at a premium: to use non-physical spaces.

We already consider the concept of what is reality to be pretty flexible. Humanity exists not just in flesh-and-blood form, but also as information.

And this is where architecture is also seeing an intriguing artistic, and sensual, renaissance.

In a world of brick and mortar buildings, there are all kinds of limitations, like the aforementioned space and money. But in virtual environments there are none.

In virtual reality, architects are already creating incredible erotic environments: massive old-school bordellos, entire BDSM coliseums, high-tech cybersex latex nightclubs, and anything else you or anyone else might find exciting.

Coupling physical space to digital ones is actually pretty simple. We already have the first steps in this via developments in virtual and augmented reality headgear.

In its most simplest and affordable form, a sexual playground could simply be a piece wearable of tech. Slip on a pair of VR goggles and you could experience a wide array of erotic environments—all from within your comfy microhome.

Augmented reality gear could also be used to project into your field of vision, overlaying images onto the walls of your home. Want a piece of erotic art or a window to your lover’s house? Just digitally superimpose it wherever you want it. It’ll always be there—as long as you wear your augmented reality glasses

If you want to dispose of the headgear, and more than likely pay a bit more, you could have the option of using haptic technology. As with virtual and augmented reality, we are seeing some promising developments with that already: lasers and focused sound, both hidden in the walls of a house, able to project not just a visual illusion of whatever you wish but to also provide a sense of touch. Star Trek’s holodeck may be only a few years away.

Where your story begins

These and other new architectural concepts are already altering our concepts of home: spaces that are perfectly affordable, beautifully efficient, and absolutely pleasurable in all kinds of ways.

And, even more importantly, it could very well change what we think of as living.

Image sources: Depositphotos

The post Sensual Spaces: When Architecture, Sex, and VR Move In Together appeared first on Future of Sex.