Solar Decathlon 2005 Winner: Colorado
by Justin Thomas, Virginia on 10.17.05
The University of Colorado, Denver and Boulder, successfully defended their championship and took first place in Solar Decathlon 2005. Cornell University was the second place team, and California Polytechnic State University finished third. I wasn't all that impressed by the architecture of the Colorado house — it seemed clunky compared to some of the other houses there.
But apparently the students used the poor weather to their advantage, developing a strategy to gain points in the competition by using the energy they managed to collect on a series of very cloudy days to keep their car charged. By driving more than any other team, Colorado won the Getting Around Contest. Colorado also placed first in the Communications and Documentation Contests, and second in the Appliances Contest.
They also won the Zero Curbside Appeal and Ugliest Window Trim awards. Kudos CU!
-mt
Looks like it was designed by engineers: pure low cost functionality.
Also interesting that they won by "driving around more" than the other teams.
colorado basically won because they had the largest battery bank (which was charged via gasoline generator before the competition started) to get them through the two weeks of nearly zero sunshine Wahington D.C. experienced. imho, the most innovative and stylish designs belonged to Pittsburgh Synergy; Rhode island School of Design and Virginia Tech. Madrid and california were also nice, but the technology seemed added onto rather than integrated with the architecture.
the home from New York Institute of Technology was the only one to use a hydrogen fuel cell instead of batteries which shows it can be done for everyone that has doubts. the house is going to be used for continued research in this area as well which is great.
I had the opportunity to see most of these in-person while I was on a business trip in D.C. I was quite delighted to see these out on the capitol mall. The exposure to alternative energy that the event gleaned was quite nice. I agree, that the architecture of the winner is quite abysmal. It's very neo-futuristic trailer. Some of the others had quite lovely architecture along with good interior design. Form does matter, as well as function. Ugly blocky little homes with eye-sore solar panels are not going to appeal to the mass public. Many of the exhibitions had nice form-fitting integrated solar panels in their roofs. Kudos!
I was out in DC during the solarD and I went into all the homes, I think that it was great that we can push the renewable resources on such a public form. I can’t believe how many people are bitter about CU’s win. They may not have had the most curb appeal or best looking windows but at least their home was pre-sold and is not going to sit on a campus for two or three years tell some one of the students will buy it.
I also thought the comment about how they charged there batteries with a generator was funny because all the other teams that were mentioned used fossil fuels to ship there house to the event, CU used BioDiesel to get there house to the National mall.
I have to make a commit about the schools that were the “most innovative” all three of them had great looking homes but Pittsburgh Synergy and RISD roofs leaked witch cant say much to there craftsmanship and saying that VT had one of the most stylish designs on a website about environment is amusing because there house was made out of plastic, is that sustainable?
CU may not have had the best looker on the block, but they had a very well thought design, from there soy based insulation to there corn starch plates. Also they have won this event two times in a row so to say that it was just because there battery bank was bigger is a bad excuse.
thanks, i worked on the risd ( rhode island school of desigh ) house, and i was pretty disapointed with the sitch