The University of Florida, in collaboration with Santa Fe College and the National University of Singapore, has been selected as one of sixteen (16) teams to participate in the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon 2015. The Solar Decathlon challenges collegiate teams to design, build, and operate solar-powered houses that are cost-effective, energy-efficient, and attractive. The winner of the competition is the team that best blends affordability, consumer appeal, and design excellence with optimal energy production and maximum efficiency. An interdisciplinary student team is currently completing design work on the Solar Living House, our entry in the Solar Decathlon 2015 competition.
Inspired by mid-century modern homes and the Case Study House program, the Solar Living House is a two-bedroom home designed to embrace and frame an exterior courtyard space. Our goal is to create an elegant and disciplined house that expresses its construction in an honest and direct manner; a house that basks in the sun and harnesses the full extent of the energy it affords; a house that reflects the poetic delight of a bygone era, updated and transformed through the technological prowess of our time. We will offer a house that is at once new, yet familiar. We are looking back in order to look forward, synthesizing the clean lines, efficient spaces and material palettes of mid-century modern experiments with the efficacy of new envelope strategies, energy-productive systems, and fabrication methods. Learn more about our project at http://solardecathlon.ufl.edu .
The Solar Decathlon 2015 competition will take place October 8-18, 2015 at the Orange County Great Park in Irvine, California. We are finalizing the design and engineering of the house now, and are anticipating construction beginning in Spring 2015. Work will continue through the summer, to have the house ready for transportation to California in September 2015.