Solar Powered Homes Grace the Grounds of the National Mall – Part 1 of 2

This week marks the bi-annual Solar Decathlon competition, a design/build contest for college and university students across the world. Hosted by the federal Department of Energy, the Decathlon challenges student teams to design and build an entirely solar-powered residence. Ten competitive categories, from design and engineering to efficiency and marketing, offer a wide range of problems for students to collaboratively solve. This week, twenty single-family houses have been set up on the National Mall to offer provocative and diverse solutions to the problems of design efficiency.

Team California's competition entry (Stefano Paltera/US Dept. of Energy Solar Decathlon)

The Decathlon project began in 2002 with fourteen competing teams from the U.S. and Puerto Rico, and in the last few years has expanded to include teams from Spain, Germany, and Canada. Students are given two years to design and produce a solar-powered single-family residence, which must be built and tested locally and then disassembled, shipped to Washington, D.C., and reassembled for the competition. The houses include sleeping, dining, entertainment, leisure, and garden spaces. This year, the houses must provide dinner and a movie for a party of eight. Houses should adapt to day and night conditions, storing energy from the sun during the day and expending that energy for heating and cooling, hot water, and electricity during the day and night.

The competition highlights the need for young architects to discuss and discover new methods of energy efficiency; moreover, it shows that architectural aesthetics need not be sacrificed for the sake of efficiency. A number of designs this year move beyond the typical “box house” to create more varied and interesting plans. Collaboration is extremely important, and many of the teams consist of undergraduates and graduate students, representing architecture, landscape architecture, interior design, engineering, and business. In some cases, students from two schools in the same region have teamed up to compete.

The "rustic-chic" Cornell University entry (Photo: www.solardecathlon.org)

On October 16, there will be a clear winner, but the goal of the competition is to articulate ideas about how to create livable space that relies on resources that already exist. For example, students are encouraged to reclaim materials (such as wood and metal) from existing buildings and use them for interior and exterior finishes in their competition designs. The team from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign took wood from a Midwestern barn and used it as exterior siding for their house; Cornell University reclaimed wood from bourbon barrels to create living room furniture. The Decathlon supports student ideas and generates awareness about energy efficiency, which, as we move into the 21^st century, will become a more pressing need.