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Xanadu House (pronounced “ZAN-uh-du”) started as a novel architectural project in 1979, and eventually led to the construction of three similar visitor attractions in Kissimmee, Florida, Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin, and Gatlinburg, Tennessee in the early 1980s. All three were built with polyurethane insulation foam rather than concrete, for easy, fast, and cost-effective construction.
The Xanadu Houses were built to showcase how computers could be used in the home to carry out automated tasks, and because of their use of organic design and heavy use of technology, they became popular visitor attractions during the 1980s. 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. The Xanadu Houses were some of the last experimental houses ever built, and were the most popular example of polyurethane insulation built homes.
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 Xanadu House. 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.
Architect Roy Mason had worked on a similar project prior to his involvement in the creation of Xanadu House. He created an “experimental school” on a hill in Virginia which was also a foam structure similar. Before creating Xanadu House, Mason and Masters were influenced by other houses and building concepts which emphasized ergonomics, usability, and energy efficiency. These included apartments designed by architect Kisho Kurokawa featuring detachable building modules. In addition, some of the more significant designs included a floating habitat made of fiberglass designed by Jacques Beufs for living on water surfaces, and also concepts for living underwater by architect Jacques Rougerie. 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 the way people thought about 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. The first Xanadu House opened in Wisconsin Dells, and was created by Bob Masters, and designed by Stewart Gordon in 1979. It was 4,000 square feet in area, and featured a geodesic greenhouse. In its first Summer, 100,000 people visited the new attraction.
Disney opened the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow to compete with the Xanadu attraction. As a result Bob Masters found architect Roy Mason in 1980 at a futures conference in Toronto, to design the second Xanadu. It eventually opened in 1983 in Kissimmee, Florida 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.
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 color 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 very porthole-type large 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 center 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, hardens almost instantly. Repeated spraying produces a five-to-six-inch-thick structurally sound shell within a few hours. Once the foam cures, the plastic balloon form is removed to be used again. Once the second dome has been completed and the balloon form removed, the two rooms are joined together by wire mesh which is also sprayed with foam to form a connecting gallery or hall. This process is repeated until the house is complete. Window, skylight, and door openings are cut and the frames foamed into place. Finally, the interior of the entire structure is sprayed with a 3/4 inch coating of fireproof material that also provides a smooth, easy-to-clean finish for walls and ceilings. The exterior is 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 learnt 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 bookkeeping.
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 center 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 fails, 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. The book describes how the Xanadu Houses were designed and constructed. The book also includes an interview with Bob Masters, an early pioneer in creating and living in houses built with rigid insulation. 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.
See also
Notes
References
- Kissimmee, Florida - Demoliton: Future Arrives Without Xanadu — Article about the demolition of the last Xanadu
- Tom Halfhill. Using Computers in the Home (Compute Magazine Article, December 1982)
- Catherine O'Neil Computers Those Amazing Machines (Book, 1985), Page 90, 92. (Computing the Future) ISBN 087044574X
- Roy Mason, Lane Jennings, Robert Evans. Xanadu: The Computerized Home of Tomorrow and How It Can Be Yours Today! (Book, November 1 1983 ) ISBN 0874917018
External links
- 1982 Compute Magazine Article "Using Computers in the Home"
- Xanadu, Home of the Future Discussions
- Xanadu : Home of the future
- Kissimmee's Xanadu articles
- Photos and more Information
- Mid-Century Architecture, Xanadu information and photos
- 2005 photos of the demolition of Xanadu
- Xanadu - Demolished October 7-10, 2005 — 2005 photos of the demolished Xanadu
- Xanadu Photo Gallery — Photos of Xanadu from July, 1994
- Kissimmee's Xanadu as of 2004 — Urban Explorers photos of Xanadu in 2004.
- 3 minute Xanadu video showing the Xanadu tour (QuickTime movie)