Some Suggestions (Score 1)

If I had the money, time, and inclination, here are a few things I would think of for a modern house; they're pretty mundane but modern-practical: Insulate the house, with HRV. Whether your issue is heating or air conditioning, electricity is expensive and modern climate control uses electricity. It's financially sound, and ecologically good. I would design a "gray water" system. Water that's not sewage - from sinks, washer, etc. - should go into a tank to use for watering the lawn, flushing toilets, etc. This is probaby a better thing for the midwest that in New Orleans - I don't know what their water situation is like, obviously there's whole (muddy) river of the stuff running by. Any such system will have to be heavily designed to prevent cross-contamination and allow for gray water to go down the sewer when the tank gets full. I bet in the midwest, they still wouldn't let you water the lawn with it (or you'd just run the kitchen tap to water the lawn) so you need underground seep watering. The house of the future will have electronic appliance power control because the Enron of the future will charge you for peak use. One of the problems is that our power plants are sized for dinner-time cooking and the rest of the day, the plant runs at half-power. Each appliance will have the smarts to determine it's current and short term (next 6 hours?) power needs and adjust the power use accordingly. Since appliances aren't there yet, this means that the big power users would be connected to a box with a relay and computer interface. So, your freezer would be run during off peak - provided you don't open it, it will survive a 2 hour delay in being run. (Here's where integrating a temperature sensor would be a plus). When the air conditioner or furnace kicks in, some other devices kick off temporarily. A really smart freezer would cool itself down extra ahead of time to survive no power use for 5 hours... Your air conditioner would stop cooling when nobody's home... however, peak metering would require smarter meters. The appliances aren't there yet either. so instead, we'll all just pay generally higher prices. As previous posters have mentioned, CAT5e or Cat6 everything. Here. the phone company uses DSL for cable TV. I strongly suspect that a form of ethernet will be the most practical way to distribute HDTV around the house (think AppleTV); and the middle cable pair can be used for telephone. So put a drop anywhere - by where a TV, desk, night table, etc. would go. Wireless is all very well for surfing, but when everyone has one, there's got to be degradation from neighbourhood interference. Another nifty feature I saw was an infrared relay - an electric eye at each TV location, that runs down to an IR LED in the basement. All your electronics are located there, and any remote commands are relayed to the rack in the basement - so your DVR MythTV or cable box can feed the whole house from there. Required a pair of low voltage, IIRC and electronics at each end. Finally, all joking aside, you DO have to consider the next "big one". At the very least, have a door into the attic and another onto the roof. Allegedly many people were found drowned in their attic. The prettiest, most practical way to do this is probably a small attic room with a dormer window. Not sure what more there is to help. Locate whatever you can higher up - don't put electronics, etc. in the basement that can go in the attic (Electrical panel?). The next middlin' one may flood halfway up the first story. What else can be done to mitigate problems? I don't know. Use steel 2x4 for non-load bearing walls? Make it 2-storey, where the main floor is essentially garage and family room (like a walk-out basement) and the living area is the second floor? Have a survival kit in the attic - water, food, inflatable boat (and oars!!), etc.? Good luck!