Solar Decathlon 2007: And The Winner Is...
by Collin Dunn, Corvallis, OR, USA on 10.19.07
20 university teams battled it out for solar home supremacy, and in the end, one stands alone: congratulations to Germany's Technische Universität Darmstadt. How'd they do it? "This team from Germany came to the Solar Decathlon hoping to have an impact on people, and it's safe to say that this happened. Darmstadt won the Architecture, Lighting, and Engineering contests.
"The Architecture Jury said the house pushed the envelope on all levels and is the type of house they came to the Decathlon hoping to see. The Lighting Jury loved the way this house glows at night. The Engineering Jury gave this team an innovation score that was as high as you could go, and said nobody did the integration of the PV system any better. Darmstadt was one of seven teams to score a perfect 100 points in the Energy Balance contest. All week, long lines of people waited to get into this house."
Congrats are also in order for the University of Maryland and Santa Clara University, who took second and third place, respectively, and help prove that in solar homebuilding, there are no losers. See TreeHugger's coverage of the event here, including getting up close and personal with the entries from Maryland and the University of Colorado. All the details are at the ::Solar Decathlon
Wow. I just spent an hour looking at this house design. This is the most impressive green house design I have ever seen - by far. The level of design, ingenuity and innovation is superb. This house does an incredible job of connecting all the dots. The marriage between passive solar design, green principles and modern advanced technology is as smooth as silk. All house design should be of this calibre. I am particularly impressed with the beautiful and highly multifunctional shell.
i went to this event the other day and was thrilled at how popular and crowded it is. the designs were excellent.
i have a few photos of some of the buildings here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/scenicartisan/tags/themall/
I went up to visit and asked about the cost for that entry, as well as others. Compared to the other entries that averaged market values between $230,000 and $330,000, the first place home from Germany was cited at $3 million for an 800sf home. I find that highly disturbing. Isn't there something wrong with this?
$3 million market? Wow. And it placed 5th of 20 in Market Viability. AND it was approx. $733,000 to construct (minus the cost of consulting, transport, coordination, etc. etc.). Sounds like a developer's dream to me.