Solar Decathlon: The Latest Architecture and News

U.S. Department of Energy has announced the date and location of the 2013 Solar Decathlon. Appearing for the first time outside of Washington D.C., the highly anticipated competition will take place in 2013 from October 3rd through the 13th at the Orange County Great Park in Irvine, California. Launched in 2002, the biennial event will challenge twenty collegiate teams to design, build and operate a solar-powered house that is cost-effective, energy-efficient and attractive. Participants are judged by their ability to blend affordability, consumer appeal and design excellence with optimal energy production and maximum efficiency.

Continue reading after the break for more information and the complete list of the 2013 teams.

In keeping with our coverage of the Solar Decathlon, we are happy to share Victoria University’s Meridian First Light House third place finish. Finishing a few point shy of the University of Maryland’s 951 points, the New Zealand university received 919 points with high standings in several categories, including winning the Engineering contest, gaining first equal in Hot Water and Energy Balance, second for Architecture and third for Market Appeal. Plus, over the course of the competition, the house managed to produce more energy than it consumed – achieving net zero energy consumption, despite 10 days of undesirable weather. Team member Nick Officer exclaimed, “While we may not have won overall we are incredibly proud to have represented New Zealand on the world stage. We had such and amazing response from the US public here along with supporters back home.” Be sure to check out our previous coverage of the house to learn more about the traditional Kiwi bach – a New Zealand holiday home – inspired residence.

More photos of the residence after the break. 

19 university teams from across the world are gearing up to make their way to Washington D.C. for the Solar Decathlon. Last week,we previewed the 19 designs and, by popular demand, today we’ll be sharing more info about SCI-Arch + CalTech’s design. Entitled CHIP (short for Compacted Hyper-Insulated Prototype) the residence’s geometry is designed to respond to the sun’s orientation while wrapped in a sun performative envelope. More about CHIP, including a video walk-through, after the break.

For years, we’ve kept a watchful eye on the entries of the Solar Decathlon competition -an amazing student collaborative effort which showcases the latest in sustainable design. Today, we’re bringing you a sneak peak of the 19 houses for the 2011 competition. The form and materiality may be different from one team to the next, yet the projects’ attitudes toward optimizing solar gain and having the design serve an educational example of clean energy is all the same. While the winner of the competition best blends affordability, consumer appeal, and design excellence with optimal energy production and maximum efficiency, we enjoy seeing each team’s proposal and learning about their process. Over the course of the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing more information about some of the projects of the 2011 competition (check out our in-depth look at Team New Jersey’s eNJoy House). Which would you like to learn more about?

Check out a sampling of the teams’ models and renderings after the break and let us know which you’d like to learn more about.

In 2002, the United States Department of Energy initiated the Solar Decathlon – an intense competition challenging collegiate teams to create residences that fuse the most sustainable technologies with functionality, comfort, and of course, aesthetics. Over the course of the past decade, interest in the Decathlon has grown dramatically [be sure to read our previous Solar Decathlon coverage] as the competition has piqued the interest of students from top universities, as well as millions of public followers learning the advantages of energy-efficient, cost-effective housing.

Team New Jersey, a collaborative effort between the New Jersey Institute of Technology and Rutgers University, has designed a handicap accessible net-zero energy prototype featuring low-maintenance concrete construction and the latest green technologies, complete with a striking beach-inspired aesthetic.

More about the residence, including a great video, after the break.

New Location for 2011 Solar Decathlon

The U.S. Department of Energy just announced that the West Potomac Park, adjacent to the National Mall between the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials will be hosting the 2011 Solar Decathlon. The event’s permit for the National Mall, the launching pad for the largest solar competition in the world, had been revoked in mid January creating a lot of disruption for the 20 collegiate Solar Decathlon teams who had put over 18 months of work in preparation for the event.

Here is our previous coverage of the Solar Decathlon.

The 20 collegiate teams chosen for the 2011 Solar Decathlon headed to Orlando, Florida last week for the International Builders’ Show where they met with media, exhibited scaled models of their current designs, and had their Design Drawings reviewed – the last stages of preparation, feedback, and red-flags prior to the September assembly at the National Mall in Washington DC.

In a strange turn of events, the National Park Service and Department of Energy decided to simultaneously announce last week that the Solar Decathlon would not be hosted at the National Mall. Contestants were blindsided by the announcement to relocate this years U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon 2011 competition. The launching pad for the largest solar competition in the world, where contestants are educating the general public about sustainable living and further are held fiscally responsible under competition rules for maintaining and restoring their respective sites to their natural state following the exhibition, is apparently not good for sustainability.

More following the break

Virginia Tech garnered the first price for LUMENHAUS, their design of cutting edge responsive architecture. The 10-day inaugural Solar Decathlon Europe competition featured 17 inventive designs from around the world. The competition challenged the designs to “clearly demonstrate that solar houses can be built without sacrificing energy efficiency or comfort, and that they can be both attractive and affordable.”

Designed as a modern day pavilion and inspired by Mies Van der Rohe’s Farnsworth house, the LUMENHAUS successfully created open flowing spaces connecting occupants visually to their surrounding environment.  More photographs and a detailed description about LUMENHAUS following the break.

We are always excited to see what the Solar Decathlon entries bring to the table. It is an extremely intense competition, rooted in the belief that highly efficient homes can be sustainable without sacrificing aesthetics or comfort. Throughout the months spent preparing their final houses, students from some of the best universities in the world strive to fuse technological innovation, sustainability and design into a functional entity.

The competition challenges students to think beyond the systems and strategies that are currently in use, thus, each proposal attempts to find innovative ways to approach the issues of renewable energy and energy efficiency. The University of Florida’s Project RE:FOCUS combines its Floridian vernacular language with a ‘back-to-basics’ approach to sustainable living. As such, the 800 sqf house rethinks traditional practices and “hopes to communicate the need to RE:FOCUS how, and in what, we live.”

More about the project and more images, including some great construction shots, after the break.

After 9 days and 10 contests, Team Germany from the Technische Universität Darmstadt won the 2009 Solar Decathlon with their surPLUShome project.

I just saw that the house designed by Team California, a multidisciplinary team from CCA + SCU, that we featured a few months won the Architecture Contest (1 out of 10 contests) at the US Department of Energy Solar Decathlon 2009.