Roy Mason (architect)

Roy Mason (June 29, 1938 – May 19, 1996) was an American lecturer, writer, and futuristic architect who designed and built a variety of futuristic homes and other buildings in the 1970s and 1980s using low cost materials and alternative energy sources. Always forward looking, in 1978 Mason created plans for a fifty-home community of solar-powered houses in Columbia, Maryland, that was to be called "Solar Village". Mason invented architronics, which was exemplified in his Xanadu homes. Mason was a founding member of the World Future Society, the publisher of Futurist Magazine. He also co-designed their first logo. In the 1980s Mason was the architecture editor of the Futurist magazine. He was also the first executive director of the Home Automation Association.

Mason was very interested in modern education. He designed a sprayed foam building for an experimental college called College of the Potomac in Paris, Virginia, in 1971. He also donated his time and talents to the Capital Children's Museum in Washington, D.C., where he created several forward-looking exhibits.

Mason worked and lived most of his life in and around Washington, D.C. In 1996, at age 57, he was killed by a man named Christopher Robin Hatton at the architect's home in the 4200 block of Military Road NW. Christopher Hatton, in a drug-induced rage and demanding money from Mason, bludgeoned Mason with a hammer twenty-five times (per the autopsy). Christopher Robin Hatton was sentenced to fourteen years for the murder of Roy Mason. Mason's lover of many years, Brian Carneal, had died a year earlier of complications related to HIV. When Mason wasn't in Washington, D.C., he and Carneal resided in Delaware at their Dupont Estate.

Before entering his career of architecture and design, Mason received a master's degree from the Yale University School of Architecture. Mason was interested in futuristic homes that use alternative materials which make it easier to build homes and more affordable. Mason also favored the concept of computer automated homes which he demonstrated in his Xanadu homes with Bob Masters.

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