North East Building Society sponsors Innovative Future Homes Exhibit with augmented and virtual reality technologies as part of GET North

Newcastle Building Society is excited to support the Future Homes exhibition at Newcastle Helix, part of the GET North Innovation Trail.

The Future Homes project will develop new homes on the Newcastle Helix site that shows people a vision of how we might live- a blueprint that challenges the status quo and provides a housing model fit for the future.

Guided by core values of sustainability, accessibility and community-building, this project will offer residents the opportunity to live, work, learn and play in an attractive urban setting.

The exhibit, part of Great Exhibition of the North will provide a glimpse into what the 48 flagship houses site will do. The exhibition will take visitors on a virtual reality journey, with augmented reality model of homes that allow the user to identify key design features of future homes using iPads.

For 150 years Newcastle Building Society, the North East’s biggest building Society, has been part of the regions high street, helping people, save, buy their own home and plan their financial future.  To help communities make positive changes the Society also has a growing community grant programme available across the North East through its Community Fund at the Community Foundation.

Stuart Miller, Customer Director at Newcastle Building Society commented:

“Working with like-minded innovative organisations is at the heart of what we do at the Society.We are a high profile player in the region’s financial landscape.

As such we feel huge responsibility to understand how cities, towns and life in the region will be shaped.

“Sponsoring and working with the Future Homes Alliance where exhibition visitors can imagine a home that alters as you age and is a blueprint for new housing fit for the future; is hugely exciting for us.”

This latest sponsorship news comes as Newcastle is ranked as Rising European star in the realm of the Smart Cities debate.

The ‘smart city’ movement presents cities with the opportunity to build and plan ‘smarter’, tech-enabled living, working and playing spaces that respond to people’s changing desires and needs - that are ‘future-proof’ and ‘user-centric’.

Rose Gilroy, Future Homes Founder commented:

“What if internal walls could move to make space for a growing family and high-tech additions could be simply bolted on to make life easier when ones physical and societal needs change?

“These are the questions that excite me and help me to develop the Future Homes project and having sponsorship from a leading financial advice provider like the Newcastle Building Society is superb."

What will the Future Homes be like?

• Flexible internal space that can be changed to suit needs and preferences.
• Fabric first approach and provision of renewable energies
• Rainwater harvesting and grey water capture.
• Micro allotments and vertical veg to encourage community building
• Instrumenting the dwellings to monitor environmental and building performance and, with appropriate consents, supportive technologies for frailer individuals 

See Future Homes in Augmented and Virtual Reality technologies at the Core: Newcastle Helix, Firebrick Avenues, NE4 5TF during the Great Exhibition of the North.

The exhibition is free and there will be a series of free talks open to all in the Urban Science Building Café on Thursday evenings exploring digital innovation; ageing; water; waste, urban agriculture and energy.