Any house can be made of wood, concerete and/or steel. The choice will be up to the builder. If the project is renovation work, then the interior walls are likely to come down, and therefore replace all of the obsolete infrastructures such as copper pipes, or telephone lines.
In renovation work, if the roof is affordable to modify, then the owner will flatten the roof unless the structure is considered a historical site. The flat roof is for easily installation of solar panels. With a slanted roof, the installers must work around the structure to optimize the number of panels they can install even if the owner wants more panels installed. The insulation of the building must be an R24, and windows are of tempered glass to reduce the shards of glass if the window was broken into.
Plumbing will be flex PEX pipes. These will replace the older copper pipes that might freeze and burst. The flex PEX is less likely to split upon freezing. Nonetheless, most if not all pipes must run in interior walls stretching out to the exterior wall only to connect with the faucet. When this happens, there must be sufficient insulation to prevent the pipes from freezing. All pipes will be color coded to allow the plumber to know which line they are working on. This color coding is essential for the new generations of plumbers that would expect to see this color coding of lines as renovations happen to replace the pipes. Any renovation that have copper pipes, the owner can sell the pipes for scrap cash.
Cooking, Heating, and Hot Water must all be electric. For cooking, the best option will be induction stoves, and convection/standard ovens. For heating, this can be forced air or underfloor radiant heating. Any home with a fireplace should convert to electric fireplaces which can provide a near life like look and feel without costing natural gas. For hot water, an electric tankless hot water system will replace the old fashion hot water tanks. This will save the owner money as there is no tank of water that must be continuously made hot.
All lights must be LED lights. All switches will be slider switches, or through HAI panels. This will control how much light shines – therefore setting the mood, or just to keep the lights on, but low. If there is a ceiling fan, then that fan should have its own switch. In homes of more than 5 floors, an elevator is required. This will also include the need for an elevator room in the basement or roof. The elevator room must have access to the elevator shaft, and must have support for SIP communications. Newer elevators will have a SIP line built into the elevator where the elevator company will provide a code number. The resident will enter the code number through the elevator management system in the HAI panels. This will allow the credentials to be set for connecting to the elevator company. In addition, the telephone number to the elevator company must be disclosed in the elevator in case the SIP connection fails for any reason. Solar panels on the roof will be recommended as is a battery bank system in the electrical closet for powering the home during an electrical outage.
Communications will be either fiber or BPL (Broadband over Power Lines). BPL will support 200MBPS – 1000MBPS. This will be enough to replace DSL or coaxial, and the only thing needed will be an electrical outlet, and a BPL modem. The ISP must provide the modem for free. Once fiber is the best solution, BPL will no longer be needed. All network lines will run to the communications closet, connect to the switches, then router, and either modem (BPL), or directly into the WAN port.