Exhibit Essentials
- Ages:
- This exhibit is suitable for all ages.
- Location:
- Lower Level, Smart Home
Museum Map - Tickets:
- This exhibit requires an additional ticket with a specified entry time.
Past Meets Future in a Very Now House
The "Greenest Home in Chicago" is back with new gadgets and inventive ways to live green! The Smart Home, a fully functioning, eco-friendly home on the Museum’s grounds, is a must-see exhibit for anyone who wants their home, and life, to be smarter, more efficient and more in tune with the environment than it is today.
The Smart Home has been remade for 2011 to simultaneously bring you back to the past and forward to the not-too-distant future. Scout, a Chicago interior furnishing store, brings its specialty touch for refurbishing and reviving pieces from government and education buildings into a truly eco-friendly and stylish decor. Meanwhile, Gizmodo shares the cutting-edge technology that we'll soon be using to live, play and relax at home. Appropriate for this mix of the new and old, the Museum has also paired some of Gizmodo's newest gadgets with some of their vintage counterparts from within the Museum's collections.
All together, this fusion shows how to make the most of existing materials while searching for the most efficient in new technology. It all comes together in the home that has shown nearly 300,000 guests the ways, big and small, to make eco-friendly living a part of everyday life.
Explore the Exhibit
Tickets
This exhibit is not included in general admission and requires an additional timed-entry ticket. Tickets (which include Museum general admission and Smart Home admission) are $23 for adults, $22 for seniors and $12 for children 3-11.
Members receive free tickets (per their admit number) and then additional tickets are $7 adults, $2 kids.
Tour times
Tour times may vary and are subject to change. Confirm the tour times on the date of your visit by seeing the online ticketing page, or call the Museum at (773) 684-1414.
Plan A Class Trip
Take a guided tour of the Smart Home for an engaging lesson in environmental science and technology.
- Museum Hours
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- Daily: 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- Open every day except Christmas Day
- Museum Location
- Getting Here
- Happening Now
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Powerful: African Americans in Energy
Navigate a miniature golf landscape as you learn about our range of energy choices.
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Tornado Alley
Ride along with researchers of VORTEX 2 to hunt for some of nature's most destructive storms.
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Rocky Mountain Express
Jump onboard this journey through the Canadian Rockies by train!
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- Coming Soon
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Member Omnimax Film Festival
See a favorite Omnimax film, catch one you may have missed or experience a premiere.
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MythBusters: The Explosive Exhibition [Opens March 15]
Try your hand at busting or confirming myths in wildly entertaining experiments.
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Elements and Experiments
Join bestselling author Theodore Gray on his tour of the periodic table.
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Exhibit Resource Guide
- Download the 2011 Smart Home resource guide to see the eco-friendly products, "green" ideas and resources found throughout the exhibit.
- Exhibit Resource Guide (PDF)
Smart Home Podcast
- Meet the architect of "Chicago's greenest home" in our interview with Michelle Kaufmann.
Download the Smart Home Podcast
Learn More
- Find out more about the mkSolaire and the architect who created the home.
Read Michelle's blog - See the Smart Home on NBC Nightly News.
- Check out the story