How to Incorporate Fluid Architecture into Your Home

Most people remodel because their home no longer fits their needs. They like the location but need more--or a different--living space. Fluid architecture hinges (pardon the pun) on walls that rotate, pivot and slide to reshape rooms to your needs with the push of a button.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

1. Analyze whether your home does what you need it to do. What activities does your family enjoy? Which rooms or spaces work for you and which don't?

2. Evaluate your home's natural setting. Do you want better visual access to any landscape features? Do you enjoy great views only at certain times of the day or year? Would you like greater access to the outdoors?

3. Investigate fluid architecture, a system patented by FutureSpace (fs-c.com). Movable walls multiply the function of the same square footage. The same wall can rotate from home theater equipment on one side to a home office on the other.

4. Move a bedroom outdoors on remote-controlled motorized tracks that draw only 1/8 horsepower; if it starts to rain, sensors tell the room to slide back inside. Making a movable 12-by-14- foot (3.6 by 4.3 m) room costs at least $45,000.

5. Remodel your house using fluid architecture concepts in about four months. Depending on its features, a rotating wall designed and installed by professional engineers and architects costs about $11,500.

Tips & Warnings

• Alfresco rooms make the most sense in a relatively bug-free Southwestern climate, but translucent screens are available for insect control in other areas.