This article was originally published in Australian Property Investor magazine and is copyright and reproduced with their permission.

The family home isn’t what it used to be, thanks to the modern-day trappings of the 21st century.

I should say upfront that I am not in the market for a new “project home” in the suburbs. But whenever I see a magazine or a newspaper advertisement for this product I am drawn – like a moth to a flame – to consider every detail of the dwelling: its size, cost, layout and, my special interest, its component rooms.

I am a “floorplan-o-phile”.

My own house is 120 years old and so the reality is that I would never buy a project house myself. But this doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate their capacity to adapt to the market. A generation ago a suburban house was a straightforward affair: three bedrooms, kitchen, lounge

room, bathroom, laundry and toilet.

Not so today.

In the modern project home three bedrooms have multiplied to four. I’ve sighted some plans where the kids have their own “children’s retreat” while others have a “TV area”.

The bedrooms have also migrated over the course of 100 years. The parents’ bedroom is positioned at the front of the house; the children’s bedrooms are relegated to the rear of the

property. I find this shift socially interesting and especially when linked to the renaming of the parents’ bedroom as the “master suite”. The parents have moved upmarket whereas the riffraff kids have gone in the opposite direction.

I especially like interpreting the symbols for household furniture in floorplans. The beds are always made with one corner turned down just like in a five-star hotel. Oh what bliss it must be to live in such a project home. What they need are tiny symbols of messiness to insert into teenagers’ bedrooms to add that extra touch of realism.

But the modern project home has so much more to offer. Over recent years a home theatre has muscled its way into the home replete with an oblong symbol stretched along the wall to represent a plasma television. Every time I consider these plans I can feel my own old house moving further and further away from the centre of gravity of suburban Australia.

For some years now the upper echelon of project homes have had rumpus rooms. The purpose of a rumpus room seems to be to accommodate a billiard table. I especially like the symbol for this piece of furniture as it has the cue jauntily placed at 45 degrees to the table.

Another modern addition to the project home is a place that is mysteriously referred to as “alfresco”. The “alfresco” is such an important place that it’s never accompanied by another term such as “area”. Like Madonna, alfresco exists in and of itself. No need for an accompanying term.

The Latino influence of alfresco extends to the front of the house where what I once knew as the “porch” has now metamorphosed into the “portico”. I feel sorry for the porch; it simply isn’t upmarket enough to have survived the transition into the 21st century.

In the 1970s project homes proudly included what was known as “conversation pits”. This was a sunken part of the lounge room floor where guests could lounge on shag-pile carpet and watch television and chat. The conversation pit was a 1970’s version of the sofa.

Alas the conversation pit never survived the ’70s, let alone the 20th century. I wonder what these sunken floors are being used for today? Do the residents of houses built in, say, 1975 proudly invite guests in 2008 to join them in the conversation pit? Or do they explain away the hole-in-the-floor as an “architectural treatment”. If you’re the proud owner of a conversation pit please email me your thoughts.

This got me thinking about what aspects of the modern house might be as obsolete as the conversation pit within 40 years? Today’s project homes plunge the motorcar directly into the heart of the home with the garage leading straight into the kitchen. What if motorcars become obsolete by the middle of this century? What will we do with the garage?

And what if most people by 2050 are working from home? Perhaps the rumpus room will be made over as an office and a communications centre? And as for alfresco, we might

be so concerned about skin cancer by 2050 that no-one would be silly enough to design a space for outdoor living!

There’s nothing new in this concept. For more than a century Australian houses have evolved to suit their occupants and their lifestyle. With this in mind perhaps those looking for long-term capital gain should consider properties that don’t just have all the mod-cons now but which have the attributes to facilitate growth and development in the future.

When viewed from this perspective it’s perhaps far more important for a house to be well positioned on the block to allow for future development rather than to ensure that it has, say, a home theatre, or for that matter a conversation pit.

This article was first published in Australian Property Investor magazine. For a special subscription discount to API offered exclusively to Property Update readers, please click here.